An oral and maxillofacial surgeon — abbreviated OMS, and often OMFS — is a dental specialist who performs surgery on the mouth, jaws, and face: wisdom teeth, dental implants, corrective jaw surgery, facial trauma, and oral pathology.
Becoming one takes the longest path in dental specialty education: a residency of at least four years after dental school — typically four to six, some programs offering an option to pursue a medical degree.
Among the dental specialties BLS tracks separately, OMS had the highest median wage in May 2025.
What is an oral & maxillofacial surgeon?
An oral and maxillofacial surgeon is a dentist who has specialized in surgery of the mouth, jaws, and facial region.
You'll see the specialty abbreviated both ways — OMS and OMFS — and both mean the same thing: the recognized dental specialty of oral and maxillofacial surgery.
The National Commission on Recognition of Dental Specialties and Certifying Boards defines it as the specialty that includes the diagnosis, and the surgical and adjunctive treatment, of diseases, injuries and defects involving the hard and soft tissues of the oral and maxillofacial region — the whole scope in one sentence.
The scope is broad and genuinely surgical — well beyond what a general dentist does — spanning dentoalveolar surgery (teeth and the bone around them), reconstructive and corrective jaw procedures, facial trauma, and oral pathology.
OMS practice in dental offices and hospital settings alike.
It's dentistry's surgical specialty.
It's also the third-largest of the 12 recognized specialties by ADA Health Policy Institute's 2025 count: 7,482 professionally active dentists held a certificate or degree in oral and maxillofacial surgery, behind orthodontics (10,844) and pediatric dentistry (9,521).
What does an oral and maxillofacial surgeon do?
The clearest answer reads like a job description.
The specialty's definition — diagnosis and the surgical and adjunctive treatment of diseases, injuries and defects of the hard and soft tissues of the oral and maxillofacial region — is broad, and in practice it means work like:
- Dentoalveolar surgery — complex extractions, including impacted wisdom teeth
- Dental implant placement — CODA's OMS standards require implant training covering preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative management of the implant patient
- Corrective (orthognathic) jaw surgery
- Facial trauma and fracture repair
- Oral pathology — managing pathologic conditions of the mouth and jaws
- Anesthesia and sedation — CODA requires graduating residents to be trained to competence in general anesthesia and deep sedation for patients 8 and older
CODA also requires at least 120 weeks of the four-year program to be devoted to clinical OMS.
The specialty is also referral-driven — cases arrive on referral, largely from general dentists, which makes referral relationships central to the practice — see orthodontist vs. oral surgeon for how the two specialties' work compares.
Oral surgeon vs. general dentist (and who does implants)
A general dentist's typical list — per BLS's duties for the occupation — runs from removing decay and filling cavities to repairing or removing damaged teeth and making models for appliances like dentures; the surgical specialty work is what gets referred out, and oral surgery is one of the referral-driven specialties.
Impacted wisdom teeth, complex extractions, jaw surgery, and facial trauma are the territory the OMS residency exists to train.
Implants are the interesting overlap: CODA's periodontics standards require perio training to cover implant site development and the surgical placement of dental implants, and CODA's OMS standards require implant training too, which makes "who does my implant" a real question for patients.
OMS bring surgical training and anesthesia capability to complex implant cases.
The right provider depends on the case's complexity.
How you become an oral surgeon
It's the longest road in dental specialty education — CODA's four-year minimum is double the 24-month floor set for endodontics, orthodontics, and pediatric dentistry.
You first become a dentist: most dental programs require at least a bachelor's degree and certain science courses, dental school leads to a DDS or DMD, and dentists must be licensed in the state where they work.
Then comes an oral and maxillofacial surgery residency of at least four years of full-time study, with at least 120 weeks devoted to clinical OMS — CODA's accreditation minimum.
BLS describes OMS programs as typically taking 4 to 6 years and possibly resulting in a joint medical degree: per the CODA/ADA HPI survey of advanced dental education, 51 dental schools or institutions offered accredited OMS programs with an option to pursue an MD, out of 103 OMS programs, in 2025-26.
The standard also requires residents to spend at least 32 weeks on anesthesia and medical services — including at least 20 weeks functioning as an anesthesia resident — and graduating residents must be trained to competence in delivering general anesthesia and deep sedation to patients aged 8 and older.
Board certification comes from the American Board of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (ABOMS).
Admission is competitive in raw numbers — in the 2026-2027 Postdoctoral Dental Matching Program Match, 440 applied for 260 positions — see how competitive the match is for the full picture.
See also the step-by-step guide to how to become an oral surgeon, the CODA-set minimum residency length for exactly what's required, or the 4-year vs. 6-year (MD) decision if you're weighing the two tracks.
How much does an oral surgeon earn?
Oral and maxillofacial surgeons sit at the top of BLS's May 2025 pay table for the dental specialties it tracks separately.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a median wage of $352,220 per year for OMS (OEWS, SOC 29-1022, May 2025), with a very wide range: the 10th percentile was $86,250 and the 90th was $622,640.
BLS's wage estimates exclude the self-employed and owners and partners in unincorporated firms, so they understate pay for practice owners; ADA HPI suppressed its 2025 net-income figure for OMS altogether, for too few observations.
BLS projects employment of oral and maxillofacial surgeons to grow 6% from 2025 to 2035.
See our oral surgeon salary guide for the percentile breakdown, or browse current oral surgeon openings.