Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery teaching in the medical undergraduate curriculum: A Scottish perspective and suggestions for future improvement

Medical undergraduate teaching of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (OMFS) has been shown to be limited compared with other surgical specialities. This has a potential negative impact on informed decision making for future career choices and appropriate specialty referrals. National statistics demonstrate undersubscribed OMFS higher specialty posts, highlighting the importance of early exposure and continued improvements to training to attract, support and retain future trainees. The purpose of this project was to explore OMFS teaching in the Scottish university’s medical curricula and to assess final year medical students’ understanding of the specialty and training pathway. Four universities were contacted to explore OMFS teaching in the curriculum. Two universities responded; one centre included a one-hour lecture in second year and a single theatre session in fourth-year. The second centre included a forty-five-minute lecture in third year. Final year students were invited to complete a questionnaire exploring understanding of OMFS scope of practice and the training pathway. 22 responses were collected. 81.8% had poor knowledge of the specialty, 50% had limited understanding of the training pathway and 36.4% described no formal OMFS curriculum teaching. All participants were in favour of additional mandatory undergraduate teaching about OMFS to improve their understanding of the specialty and ability to make appropriate clinical referrals. Our results demonstrate that majority of medical students lack confidence in understanding the scope of practice of OMFS, emphasising the requirement for change in the undergraduate medical curriculum.