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LSU- New Orleans Program Overview
We will now be taking one person for a 4 year spot (non-dual degree).
The PASS app for this position will be the same as the 6 year spot
We would like to provide an up-to-date overview of our program for all prospective applicant and those interested in pursuing our field. We welcome all to spend time with us via an externship so you can truly see what our program is about. Please feel free to message us on Instagram or SDN regarding any questions!
Basic Structure/Schedule:
6-year dual-degree program with 4 categorical and 6 non- categorical residents per year
4-year single degree program 1 resident per year
Year 1 (12 months OMFS, 12 months 2nd year medical school)
Our intern year is divided up into monthly rotations which each categorical intern will spend a total of 3 months on. One of the rotations is at University Medical Center New Orleans. This is our main hospital in New Orleans, and it is an extremely busy level 1 trauma center. We have block time 3 days a week but are generally found operating Monday through Sunday. The majority of the cases we do here are trauma or post-traumatic reconstruction (local flaps, free flaps, large grafting cases etc), however we also do quite a bit of orthognathic and cosmetic cases here. Concurrently, we have a clinic based in the hospital which runs Monday-Friday. In the UMC clinic you will see a lot of surgery consults as well as patient requiring dentoalveolar surgery. You will become proficient in surgical extractions under local anesthesia in this clinic. Interns also take the majority of their call at UMC. We take deep space infection and mandible fracture call 24/7 365. On every even day we also take all other facial trauma. By the end of your intern year, you will be extremely comfortable closing complex lacerations and evaluating these patients. Interns also spend time in the OR at UMC. Since we have a profound volume of cases here, interns generally get to operate a significant amount. You will finish the year comfortable doing simple mandibles and infections under the supervision of a 5th year resident and staff.
Another rotation interns participate in will be at Touro Infirmary in New Orleans. This rotation will be on our head and neck oncology service. Here we do a healthy amount of ablative and reconstructive surgery for both benign and malignant disease. Clinic days will be at our faculty practice clinic within LSUHSC School of Dentistry. You will learn a lot of ICU management here.
The third rotation is also at Touro Infirmary but will be focused around orthognathic and TMJ surgery. We do everything from arthroscopy to total joints. You will also spend your non-OR days at the faculty practice clinic where you will learn to work up orthognathic and TMJ patients, plan surgeries virtually and have to ability to get your hands in some dentoalveolar surgery.
Interns also take the systems-based courses for 2nd year of medical school along with the according exams. These courses usually happen in the afternoons. At the end of your intern year, you will get one month of dedicated step 1 study time before taking USMLE step 1.
Year 2 (3rd year of medical school)
This year is fairly straight forward. You will be a full time third year medical student going through your clerkships. You take the according shelf exam for each clerkship and at the end of the year you will take USMLE step 2.
Year 3 (5 months anesthesia, 5 months OMFS), 2 months 4th year medical school)
Our anesthesia rotation is split up into a 3-month rotation at the VA hospital in New Orleans and 2 months at Children’s Hospital of New Orleans. At the VA you will function as an anesthesiology resident and have the ability to run general cases in the OR to run deep sedations in the endoscopy suites. You will get plenty of experience managing far from ideal airways here.
At Children’s you will complete your pediatric anesthesia requirements. Here you will get exposure to all aspects of pediatric anesthesia.
There are 2 months of medical school that we must complete this year. One month is a month-long ICU rotation which prepares you well for your general surgery year. The other is a mix of courses and EM rotations.
5 months of this year will be spent back on service. You will be spending all of this time at our faculty practice clinic in the dental school where you will be doing IV sedations and dentoalveolar surgery. We are doing 6-8 sedations per day, 5 days a week along with local cases. You have some freedom to get involved in other things as well such as going to the OR or being involved with our cosmetics clinic.
Year 4 (3 months neurosurgery, 1 month plastic surgery, 1 month burn ICU, 1 month trauma ICU, 1 month trauma surgery, 1-month general surgery, 4 months OMFS)
This is our general surgery year. One of the unique aspects if our program is that we spend 3 months as a neurosurgery intern. You will get to be heavily involved in the OR while on this rotation, mainly with craniotomies and trachs. We have a very strong relationship with the neurosurgery program at LSU as we do a lot of joint cases together.
The rest of the rotations are straight forward 1-month rotations on the required general surgery services. Overall, you will get additional operating and patient management experience through these rotations.
The 4 months on OMFS this year are spent mainly at Our Lady of the Lake hospital in Baton Rouge. Our service in Baton Rouge is heavily involved in trauma, orthognathics, reconstruction, TMJ and free flaps. You will essentially be running the service and operating nonstop throughout your 4 months here. There are also outpatient clinics where you will get further experience with IV sedations and dentoalveolar experience. This rotation is a great way to get geared up for your upper-level years.
Year 5 (12 months OMFS)
This year is broken up into four rotations, each 3 months long. One of these rotations will be back at UMC New Orleans. As an upper level you will be the primary surgeon on the majority of the cases.
The next rotation will be on our head and neck service at Touro. Again, you will be running this service and getting a significant amount of operative experience with all sorts of pathology.
We also have a 3-month rotation in Charlotte, North Carolina at the Carolinas Center for Oral and Facial Surgery. This is a very unique rotation as you will participate in an extremely high volume of orthognathic surgery, along with just about everything else.
Year 6 (12 months OMFS)
As a chief you will spend 6 months at UMC New Orleans, 3 months in Baton Rouge and 3 months at our dental school clinic. Most of our chiefs in the past have had the freedom to get more involved with cases that fit their particular interests. For example, we have had chiefs who have an interest in cosmetic surgery, so they spend time with our associated cosmetics fellow and get involved with their cases. We also have had chiefs who wanted more implant experience and manage to do a lot of full arch cases or complex bone grafting cases at the dental school.
For the 4 Year position:
Year 1: 10 months OMFS, 2 months internal medicine
Year 2: you spend 5 months on anesthesia, 1 months internal medicine, 4 months general surgery, 2 months neurosurgery
Years 3: 12 months OMFS
Year 4: 12 months OMFS
Facilities:
All of our facilities are state of the art. UMC New Orleans is a newly built hospital
OR Scope:
We are truly a broad scope program. We have multiple fellowship trained staff ranging from craniofacial and cosmetic surgery to head and neck oncology/ microsurgery.
Trauma
Orthognathics
TMJ/ Endoscopic
Benign and Malignant Pathology
Microvascular Reconstruction
Facial Cosmetics
Cleft and Craniofacial Surgery
Dentoalveolar
Implants/full arch zygoma and pterygoid implants
Call:
Our call is in house call at UMC. At UMC where we take most of our call, we take deep space infections and mandible call 24/7 365. Even days of the month we also take all facial trauma call. There is a GPR present at both UMC and OLOL which handle tooth call, vestibular abscesses and dentoalveolar fractures. Primary call is split between the cats and non cats. Generally its q3 call however this can vary per rotation.
Didactics:
Our didactics mostly consist of weekly conference on Monday mornings and a monthly academic day. Monday morning conferences allow us to collaborate and discuss the upcoming cases for the week. The monthly academic day is comprised of lectures, multidisciplinary implant meetings, M and M along with reviewing cases/ outcomes from the weeks prior. This is an all day thing and is followed by a journal club meeting where we review and discuss assigned articles. We also attend a monthly dentofacial deformity conference with the orthodontics residents where we discuss past and upcoming shared orthognathic cases as well as give each other lectures on selected topics.
There are also didactic courses during our third year for advanced head and neck anatomy as well as head and neck pathology. We do cadaver dissections geared towards surgical approaches to the facial skeleton.
Faculty:
Program Chairman/ Program Director: Jeffrey N. James MD DDS MBA FACS FAACS
Head and Neck/Micro fellowship trained
Waleed Zaid, DDS, MSC, FRCD, FACS
Earl Peter Park, MD, DMD
Hisham Hatoum, MD, DDS
Facial Cosmetic Surgery fellowship trained/board certified
Jon Perenack MD, DDS
Jeffrey James MD, DDS, MBA, FACS, FAACS
Cleft and Craniofacial surgery
Jeffrey James MD, DDS, MBA, FACS, FAACS
Rick Kapitan, DDS, MS, FACS
Craniomaxillofacial Trauma fellowship trained
Martin Duplantier, DDS
Orthognathic Surgery
Brian Ferrell DDS, MD
Michelle Zoccolillo, DDS, MD
TMJ Surgery
Dan Harris, DDS
John Nail, DDS, MD
Daniel Cook, DDS MD
Full Arch Implant Reconstructive Surgery
Michael Block, DMD
David Bulot, DDS, MD
Steve Nelson, DDS, MD
Dane St. John DDS, MD
General Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
Mark Welch, DDS
John Kent III, DMD
Wes Emison, MD, DDS
Brian Dyess, DDS
Grady Hornsby, DDS
New Orleans:
- World class dining and food scene with diverse cuisines
- Celebrations - Mardi Gras, Red Dress Run, Halloween
- Nightly live music
- Year round music festivals —Jazz Fest, Bayou Boogaloo, French Quarter Festival
- New Orleans is a dog-friendly city with several parks around the city
- Several fun 5k, 10k, half marathons, and marathons offered in and near New Orleans
Additional Perks:
- Sportsman’s paradise —Louisiana offers a variety of outdoor activities! New Orleans is only an hour from some of the best offshore fishing in the world. Residents often go bow fishing, duck/deer/gator hunting to name a few of the activities.
- Only 3 hours from the beach
- International airport
- Minimal traffic within the city
- Safe neighborhoods and plentiful housing
Medical School:
Years 2, 3, and 4 of medical school are completed during the first 3 years of residency. During that time, only 14 months are unpaid.
Recent Graduates: Graduates gain the clinical and surgical expertise to pursue a diverse range of career paths. Whether that includes a craniofacial fellowship or private practice, LSU’s comprehensive training program and vast alumni network facilitates a step in the direction that you desire after graduation.
Externships:
We highly encourage externs to come visit and see what LSU is really about. We provide no cost housing in dedicated, clean, fully equipped call rooms that we have solely for externs. You will be fully involved in our day to day operations. You will be able to extract an endless amount of teeth, drain abscesses, close lacerations and get your hands dirty in the operating room. On top of all of this, you will get to experience the great culture we have built amongst our residents.
Are the faculty listed all full time or are some adjunct?
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Full time:
Zaid, Park, Hatoum, James, Kent, Emison, Dyess, Hornsby
The adjunct list is fairly abbreviated.
For example, during our PGY5 rotation with Carolinas Center for Oral & Facial Surgery in Charlotte NC there are ~5+ other surgeons you’ll regularly operate with.
Thank you! Does LSU do any corrective sleep apnea surgery?
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Not much. The majority of our experience with OSA cases are done during the Charlotte rotation. I did around 55 ortho cases (a handful were for OSA) in 3 months.
Across all rotations orthognathic cases are almost all conventional/cleft referrals. (And of course the famous LSU trauma specials)
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How many years of ACGME credit is given with the completion of the 6 year program?
1 year is issued at baseline but if 2 years are required the department will appeal for it. For example, Louisiana issues our graduates 2 years of credit (ACGME recognition of PGY4 & PGY5)