Clinical training

During your clinical training, you spend four quarters with dedicated Mayo Clinic faculty in maxillofacial prosthetics and dental oncology, head and neck surgery, radiation oncology, and medical oncology. You work closely with these consultants to manage the care of both inpatients and outpatients.

The typical schedule for a Maxillofacial Prosthetics and Dental Oncology fellow includes close interaction with multiple departments throughout the year to enhance patient care and the educational experiences. You have the opportunity to care for patients requiring needs in many areas of maxillofacial prosthetics and dental oncology.

Didactic training

Your didactic training stresses maxillofacial prosthetics and dental oncology. You become proficient in all aspects of the laboratory technology needed for fabricating maxillofacial prostheses. You also receive instruction in dental materials, the basic sciences, and current literature in maxillofacial prosthetics and dental oncology.

You attend seminars on all aspects of maxillofacial prosthetics during the four quarters of your fellowship. You learn about examination, diagnosis and treatment planning. You are also involved in weekly head and neck cancer conferences and seminars for craniofacial anomalies.

Seminars include but are not limited to:

• Management of patients undergoing surgical resection of the maxilla and mandible
• Care of patients with facial defects
• Diagnosis, treatment planning, and management of patients who need various types of implant prostheses

Case studies

Throughout the Maxillofacial Prosthetics and Dental Oncology Fellowship, you prepare patient presentations for multidisciplinary discussion.

In addition, you participate in the craniofacial conference, in which complex dentofacial deformity patients are evaluated and their coordinated treatment is planned with specialists from plastic surgery, otolaryngology, medical genetics, speech pathology, psychology, and social services.

Research training

You are encouraged to pursue a project focusing on maxillofacial prosthetics during your fellowship.

Teaching opportunities

You may have the opportunity to teach advanced Mayo Clinic prosthodontic residents as well as visiting medical and dental students through chair-side instruction and seminars.

Evaluation

To ensure that you acquire adequate knowledge and develop the appropriate technical skills to meet program expectations, your performance is monitored carefully during the Maxillofacial Prosthetics and Dental Oncology Fellowship. You are formally evaluated by supervising faculty members on a regular basis and meet with the program director to review these evaluations. In addition, you regularly evaluate the faculty to confirm that your educational needs are being met.