SouthsideOralFacialSurgery About Us

At Southside Oral and Facial Surgery, all of our staff members are trained in basic cardiac life support (CPR) techniques and our doctors & nurses are also current in the Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) techniques. In addition, the Virginia State Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Society performed an office inspection and our doctors, staff & equipment were found to meet the safety requirements for anesthesia administration.

The specialty of Oral and Maxillofacial surgery serves as a bridge between the medical and dental fields of health care. All oral surgeons complete a four year dental school curriculum, obtaining a dental degree as their first educational step beyond college. This is followed by a residency in Oral and Maxillofacial surgery which lasts at least four years. This residency requires the surgeons to spend a minimum of one year in the hospital performing duties of a medical resident in many areas of medicine, especially anesthesia and surgery. In addition to this medical training, oral surgeons also spend approximately three years learning advanced Oral and Maxillofacial surgical and anesthesia techniques to competently provide care to patients with oral and facial health needs. Though oral surgeons do not provide routine dental care, they do work closely with general dentists and other dental specialists to correct dental and facial problems.

The practice of Oral and Maxillofacial surgery involves removing teeth and facial pathology, restoring missing teeth with implants, fighting the effects of aging with facial cosmetic surgery, fixing facial trauma, correcting facial growth abnormalities, reconstructing facial defects from trauma or pathology, treating facial infections, and using a variety of anesthesia techniques to accomplish many procedures in the office setting. Also, the placement of dental implants allows us to replace a missing tooth with a new ‘tooth’ that is independent of the adjacent teeth. This relatively new treatment option is very exciting for all oral health care providers. As oral surgeons we are able to use our experience and training in anesthesia to provide our patients with as comfortable an experience as possible in the office. No other dental specialist or medical surgeons undergo as much training in the safe administration of anesthesia as Oral and Maxillofacial surgeons. Please feel free to ask us any questions you may have regarding our specialty or general oral and facial healthcare. We appreciate your confidence and trust in allowing Southside Oral and Facial Surgery to care for you and your families.