Knowledge and Perception of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery as a Specialty Amongst Dental and Medical Students at a Public University in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC): A Comparative Study

Knowledge of scope of oral and maxillofacial surgery amongst medical students at a tertiary hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal

“…There are studies which shows that postgraduates from the medical college associated with a dental college made better referrals for patients in need of OMFS compared to the postgraduates from medical college which did not have an associated dental college. 14 However, this contradicts the study done by Kamal et al 13 This study also shows that for the treatment of TMDs 100 (80%) basic science students and 53 (77.94%) interns would refer to OMFS. This study is consistent with the study done by Safi et al 15 In contrast, a survey by Vadepally et al revealed that most of the medical doctors do not know where to refer the patients with TMJ problems.…”

“…This may be due to less exposure of preclinical students to the speciality and the core knowledge about the procedure performed by OMFS which is similar to the study done by Hunter et al which shows that although most of medical practitioners have heard of speciality but very small number knows the full extent of it. 5 12,13 One reason could be due to the advertisement on social media where Plastic surgery has better platform over Maxillofacial surgeons globally. Medical students trained at academic institution where both medical and dental streams co-exist are better exposed hence well aware regarding the scope of OMFS.…”