First Degree Hotspots for OMFS Recruitment 1967-2010: dental and medical schools where OMFS specialists and trainees were more likely to start their careers

Abstract Introduction Evidence around careers show that many surgeons are inspired early in their career, often based on their undergraduate experience. In this context we reviewed the location of the first degrees of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (OMFS) consultants and specialty trainees to look for any patterns or trends. It has been shown that there is variation across medical schools when core surgical trainee recruitment is analysed. No previous paper has undertaken a similar analysis of medical and dental schools in the context of OMFS surgery. Method The first-degree universities of OMFS specialists and trainees were compiled from the Medical and Dental Register, tabulated and analysed. There were 680 entries in total with dates of graduation ranging from 1967 to 2010. The relative frequency of first-degree locations based on the number of current places for medical and dental students was calculated to aid comparison. Results There are ‘hot-spots’ where many OMFS specialists originate and also universities that rarely or never produce OMFS surgeons. Reviewing these figures in the context of the number of places available to students, and against time, points to areas where OMFS appears to be promoted, and others were the specialty has a low impact. University of London leads the way for both medicine and dentistry first trainees, by a considerable margin. Glasgow is the next most productive for dentistry and Nottingham for medicine. The 13 current medical schools from which no OMFS specialists or trainees have originated are Brighton, Cambridge, Anglia Ruskin, Exeter, Hull, Keele, Lancaster, Norwich, Plymouth, Swansea, UCLAN and Warwick. There are other new medical schools opening this year. Conclusion There are opportunities for all OMFS units and training rotations to look at ‘best practice’ for OMFS recruitment and apply as many inspiring interventions as they are able to in their local medical/dental schools and foundation/core training programmes.