Oral Medicine and Oral Surgery: two sides of the same coin

Abstract

Dear Editor, In addition to the current residency curricular reform (“Réforme du 3 cycle” or R3C in short) and another highly understandable medical resident strike (pertaining to their unacceptable weekly working hours), 2021 is also the 10-year anniversary of our “new” surgical specialty, cursorily named “Oral Surgery”, an appropriate time to reflect on the strengths and pitfalls of the curriculum implemented so far. In an editorial from 2016, whilst discussing the current situation of Oral Medicine practice in France and lack of formal specialty (as opposed to numerous other countries who have Oral Medicine specialists), Pr Jean-Christophe FRICAIN aptly raised an important question:Will Oral Surgery save Oral Medicine? [2]. Nevertheless, I believe that the converse question could also be raised: Will Oral Medicine save Oral Surgery? Considering the aforementioned lack of specialty training in Oral Medicine, both in medical and dental practices, Oral Surgery is by necessity a “medico-surgical” specialty (to use the French expression), similarly to otorhinolaryngology for instance. Nevertheless, as previously suggested, I strongly believe Oral Surgery to be a “medico-surgical” specialty not (only) by necessity but by nature, Oral Medicine and Oral Surgery being but two sides of the same coin [3]. In a period when more and more residents are turning towards lifestyle surgical specialties (i.e. better pay, better work/life balance, fewer hours) [4], including private practice-performed Oral Surgery, this issue is far from trivial. As academics, if we do not sufficiently promote the unfortunately less considered and less remunerated Oral Medicine part of our specialty, the consequences for the patients will be dire and our specialty will clearly not flourish as hoped. From an historical perspective, it is interesting to note that the arbitrary separation between Medicine and Surgery, still prevailing today to some extent, has been the subject of much