An OMFS responds to this month's CounterPoint

I just read your counter point, and I totally disagree with you. Where I
trained, we received more soft tissue training than ENT (I noticed you did
not mention ENT) and operated on the face more than plastics. I will not
send an article out about how many times we as OMFS residents had to
re-operate on patients that plastics "managed" and not just mandible
fractures — everything from orbital trauma to mid-face trauma (ZMC, etc).  Given
that and the fact that the OMFS residents took care of any VIP/Professional
Athletes facial trauma, even when plastics were on call . . . that
still doesn’t make me fire out some generality like "plastics should not
treat facial trauma."  In my OMFS training, I trained under many
different facial specialists (cranial base/oculoplastics/craniofacial/
plastics/OMFS) and have spent time with some of the greats of facial surgery
and, without fail, highly skilled confident surgeons would never make such
generalities as you have. They know the quality of each surgeon lies in the
surgeon him/herself and the training, not the specialty.  Lastly, I assure
you, dental compensation/reimbursement is not falling like you make it out to
be. Send me some W2s from your colleagues and I will send you some from
mine and then you can make those comments.

Dr. B. J. Johnson
Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon