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Kraena Pre-Health
Career Library

Diagnose & Treat

Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon (OMFS)

Real surgery of the face and jaws — the longest and most competitive path in dentistry.

Years after high school

12-14

Degree

DDS or DMD, sometimes with an MD

Entrance exam

DAT

Median pay

$352,220 national median for oral and maxillofacial surgeons (BLS, May 2025).

What the job is actually like

Extractions and implants in clinic, then operating-room days for corrective jaw surgery, pathology, or facial trauma reconstruction. If you take hospital call, you get facial fractures at night.

The path

  1. 014 years undergraduate with science prerequisites
  2. 02DAT examination
  3. 034 years dental school (DDS or DMD)
  4. 044-6 year surgical residency, some including an MD degree
  5. 05State licensure and board certification

Good fit if

  • You want to operate and are willing to train as long as a physician
  • You are academically competitive at the top of your dental class
  • Trauma and reconstruction genuinely interest you

Think twice if

  • You want to be earning in your twenties
  • Trauma call would not fit the life you want
  • You would struggle with an extremely competitive residency match

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All salary figures here are median annual wages from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook, May 2025 — the most recent full national dataset. 'Median' means half of workers earn more and half earn less. Three things to keep in mind: (1) pay varies enormously by state, city, setting, and experience — a nurse in California and a nurse in rural Alabama earn very different salaries; (2) training lengths are typical, not guaranteed, and programs differ; (3) these numbers change every year. Always verify current figures at bls.gov/ooh before making a decision. For context, the BLS median wage for all U.S. occupations was $50,980, while healthcare practitioner and technical occupations had a median of $86,530 — one of the reasons health care is such a stable field.