Transcription:
ROAAOMS - Supporting Residents in Their Development as Future Leaders of the Specialty

Bill Klaproth (Host): This is an AAOMS On the Go podcast. I'm Bill Klaproth and I'm pleased to welcome with me today ROAAOMS current and past presidents. With us is Dr. Ashleigh Weyh, ROAAOMS, 2022 president.

Ashleigh Weyh, DMD, MD, MPH (Guest 2): Thank you for having us.

Host: Also with us is Dr. Artem Krutyansky, ROAAOMS 2023 president.

Artem Krutyansky, DMD, MD, MPH (Guest 3): Thanks for having us Bill.

Host: And we also have Dr. Scott Morgan, ROAAOMS 2021 president.

Yeah. So I love this and you are going to share with us a little about the AAOMS resident organization known as ROAAOMS and the importance of organizations engaging with their future members. So thank you all for being here. This is going to be a great discussion. So Dr. Morgan, let me start with you. What are the goals of ROAAOMS?

Scott D. Morgan, DDS, MD (Guest 1): ROAAOMS serves as the main resource for current and future oral maxillofacial surgery residents. And we do that by facilitating communication between its members and its affiliates, educating residents concerning the issues that face the specialty of OMS. We also demonstrate the values of OMS to the public. As well as educational dental in the medical communities. And we offer educational opportunities through our publications, our conferences, our other forums. And create opportunities for social and professional interaction. And the last thing that we do, which is very important to us is help aid in the recruitment of the best, and the brightest, dental students into our OMS training programs.

Host: Yeah, it certainly is beneficial for members. Absolutely and that's easy to see with everything that you offer and the goal of ROAAOMS. And Dr.Weyh, how does ROAAOMS ensure that AAOMS recruits the highest quality professionals into becoming an OMS?

Guest 2: Well, I really think the recruitment is one of the cornerstones of what we do. It's one of my favorite parts of ROAAOMS as well. For The last 20 years we've been doing dental school visits. Our officers all go to dental schools. We do a presentation. We interact with the dental students. We do long Q and A's. But anyone that's interested, you don't have to be on ROAAOMS, just has to contact us and we can help get a dental school visit set up. One of the things we just recently launched is two mentorship programs. One is for women and one is for underrepresented minorities.

Started in August of 2022. And as of today we have 311 mentees in the women program. And we've matched 77 in our underrepresented minority program. We're always looking for mentors as well, if anyone is interested. We also go to a lot of dental school organizations to have a presence. We do lectures. We go to ASDA every year and we just started going to SNDA as well. Jeremy Figaroa went and represented us and did some breakout sessions with the dental students.

Host: So Dr. Weyh when you're recruiting, you said you will visit other dental schools, if you will. Is there a perception that people don't know an OMS does or what is that? Should I do that? I know people want to become dentists, but is that a common challenge when you're trying to recruit people?

Guest 2: or. Yeah, I think definitely. I always say too, my parents don't even know what I do at this point. When we go to the dental schools, you know, they see OMFS. They know we extract teeth, they know we place dental implants, but I think one of the best things about our profession is we do so much. We do TMJ. I'm actually going to specialize in head and neck oncology reconstruction. Cosmetics. It's such a broad scope. And I think a lot of dental students don't realize that until we do the presentation. We usually present for about 10 minutes, and then they'll keep us around for two hours asking all of their different questions.

Host: Well that's great. Yeah, that's interesting. Thank you for sharing that with us.

Guest 1: It's always a lot of fun at the dental schools to you know, our presentation includes a lot of you know, surgical photos and so the shock factor of the dental students when you show them, like a big trauma case or something, it's always interesting.

Host: So Dr. Morgan do they say, oh, I didn't know that you did that. That's something I would like to do?

Guest 1: Oftentimes that's when they see, after just going to dental school, like what you can do as a surgeon after you know, a surgical residency is impressive. And then it's usually over like a lunch and learn. So you can see, who has sort of an uneasy stomach when showing.

Host: You're always monitoring, looking. Well, let me ask you each a question briefly then, since we're on this topic, did you always want to be an OMS Dr. Morgan? Or did you start saying, I want to be a dentist and then somebody recruited you?

Guest 1: I really always wanted to be an oral surgeon, and I had a great mentor myself who had taken my wisdom teeth out. But he sort of took me under his wing and sort of showed me what oral surgeons do and got me into the hospital early, so I could see jaw surgery and things like that. And that was what interested me most. But before going to dental school, you have to really be sure you're okay being a dentist because it's a very competitive specialty to get into oral surgery. So you're not sure if that's all going to pan out and same thing it's different to watch something versus doing something. But I remained interested and was grateful that I've been given the opportunity to be an oral surgeon.

Host: That's great Dr. Weyh, since I started talking to you earlier, how did you become an OMS?

Guest 2: Well, I went to dental school and I was always interested in becoming a maxillofacial surgeon. I think, especially at the beginning of dental school, I didn't have the confidence until I started interacting. I was at Nova Southeastern and I started interacting with a lot of the residents in particular Dr. Lunday took me under her wing, told me, of course I could do this. I'm smart enough. Gave me the guidance, and here I am today. So I couldn't have done this without mentors.

Host: That's fascinating. Dr. Krutyansky how about you? Did you want to be a dentist first, and then you were introduced to oral surgery?

Guest 3: Yeah, that's kind of the story for me. My mom's a general dentist. So my thought was, you know, I was going to be a general dentist. And when I started, I talked to a couple of third and fourth years and they're, you know, go to the orthodontic clinic, go to the oral maxiofacial surgery clinic. See if you like it. I fell in love with being in the operating room. The first time I went in the operating room, seeing the orthognathic case, that's what really opened my eye to the specialty and I'm on big ice hockey guy. I played ice hockey my whole life, and I felt like, you know, when you're on the ice, nothing else exists in this world.

You don't have your phone. Nobody's bothering you. And when you're in the operating room, the first time I put in a screw. And everything just zone's out. That's the kind of feeling I fell in love with, so that attracted me to oral surgery and that's how I ended up there.

Host: That's great. Well, thank you for sharing the stories and you're talking about recruiting. I thought It'd be interesting to learn how the three of you became oral surgeons and Dr. Krutyansky, let me stay with you as we get back to ROAAOMS. Can you talk about the educational programs that ROAAOMS does develop for its members?

Guest 3: Yeah, so there's three sort of major things that come to mind.Historically we've had the OMS reference guide, which hopefully most residents know about. It's kind of vital, I think during our intern year, and as we progress through our residency. It has a ton of information, and we try to keep it up to date. And then we have the disasters from the master's program. And that basically focuses on different clinical areas each year. And we get the most well-known surgeon in that field, kind of talk about complications they've had. How they dealt with it. Then we get OMSNIC involved in that as well, get an attorney there. That's a really good program and then a big thing that we're very proud of is the resident to transition conference. And that's literally what it states' right? It's our transition from residency to practice. We don't learn a lot about that within our programs. And this is a good way to hear from different surgeons throughout the country in different parts of their career whether they're just starting, whether they're then in academics, whether they've been you know, there for a long time.

And we kind of get some ideas of what we can do with our career. It also talks about contract negotiations, malpractice insurance professional liability, coding, billing information, all the things we don't really do a lot of during our training.

Host: I was just going to say, you probably don't go in depth on these types of things. So it's great to have the membership like this to cover those things. The disasters from the masters sounds fascinating to dive into a case that you really can learn from. So Dr. Morgan then it seems obvious, but what are the benefits of the ROAAOMS membership?

Guest 1: Sure. So, all residents of accredited programs have free membership in ROAAOMS and free is sort of like the overarching theme as a resident, which you don't really appreciate until just over a year out of residency, and then you realize that not everything is free. But residents can come to the annual meeting with a waiver for the registration fee. You get a complimentary subscription to the journal which is fantastic because I think it's important to stay up to date with the literature.

And you don't have a lot of time as a resident, to do it, but I always enjoyed getting my hard copy of the journal once a month and kind of flipping through it. And so that's taken care of for you. When you become an actual member within the greater organization, the membership fee for the application is taken care of for you. And then there's a number of AAOMS courses, CE courses, things like that, where you can have either a reduced fee or free of charge. And then as a resident, coming to the annual meeting, is such a great experience I think.

I was fortunate enough to attend many of the meetings kind of during residency. And, you know, residency is hard. And you get kind of burnt out after a while. But when I was at the meeting, you sort of get recharged, right? Like you, you see these phenomenal speakers. It's great to have the comradery to bring with other surgeons and other residents. And so, they have travel scholarships as well, that that can help sort of make that happen for you. So, I think that the benefits are innumerable, but largely, at least from a monetary standpoint, it's nice that they help take care of the residents.

Host: Yeah, great to see all the tenured surgeons here at a conference like this. Really fascinating. And then Dr. Krutyansky, how can someone learn more about ROAAOMS and keep up with current events?

Guest 3: I think the best way to do it is to become a program liaison, right? Every program across the country can get involved in that way. They'll have a program liaison, and then you can help your program liaison go to dental school visits. You know, another important thing is the resident e-newsletter. Make sure your profile's up to date. You have the correct email, obviously and address. And you'll get information. Follow us on the Facebook page as well as our Instagram. If you have questions you can message us on Instagram. And somebody from AAOMS will respond as well. And then apply to be part of our, you know, ROAAOMS executive committee. That's a great way to to be involved and to do, you know what we're doing and help the resident organization grow.

Host: Absolutely. So let me ask you each the same question. Again, Dr. Weyh, let me start with you. How has the membership been beneficial to you so far?

Guest 2: I think the networking. I've met so many different residents. It's just, come to the meeting. You see, so many of your friends from either from the interview trail, from these meetings. I think it just makes you be more invested in this specialty. Looking for jobs too its most residents have some kind of job interviews set up at this meeting once they start to get towards the end of their careers. So, the good thing about these organizations, they really keep you in touch with the specialty.

Host: That's great. Well, thank you for sharing that. Dr. Morgan, how about you?

Guest 1: I think, specifically ROAAOMS which I've been involved in for six years now, or something has been I've gotten so much more out of it than I ever put into it. And part of that is networking. We were laughing because we're kind of late to the podcast recording. Cause you can't walk through the main hall without getting stopped by so many people that you know. So I encourage any resident that's interested to get involved. And it really does pay you back in spades. And the amount of getting to meet important people in the specialty, job opportunities, I mean, it's really been fantastic.

Host: Potential mentors. And Dr. Krutyansky, how about you?

Guest 3: Yeah. I want to echo what they said. You learn about what's going on with the specialty. What issues are happening in the political realm. And it opens your eyes to all the different fields within our specialty. I really would just echo what these guys have said.

Host: Yeah, well, this has been a great discussion about the AAOMS resident organization known as ROAAOMS. So final question for the group. Anyone can answer. Is there anything else we didn't cover? Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Dr.Weyh how about you?

Guest 2: I think at ROAAOMS we have an executive board, but anyone can be involved in ROAAOMS. You just have to reach out to any of us, we'll find a job for you. It's recruitment. It's education. There's a political action committee. There's so many different ways you can get involved. So we'll find something for you. You just have to reach out to us.

Host: Well, that's great. Well, thank you all for your time. Dr. Weyh, thank you.

Guest 2: Thank you.

Host: Dr. Morgan.

Guest 1: Thanks Bill.

Host: And Dr. Krutyansky, thank you.

Guest 3: Thank you very much.

Host: All right. So, this has been great talking to the ROAAOMS officers today. We appreciate your insight on ROAAOMS and it's a role in AAOMS. It is really valuable to hear all of this. And if you'd like to learn more about ROAAOMS, please visit aamos.org. That's AAOMS.org. ROAAOMS. And you can also follow ROAAOMS on Facebook and Instagram or you can contact ROAAOMS staff at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Thanks for listening.