 I am Dr. Abhay Kamath, Consultant Maxillofacial Surgeon, working at Kasthurba Medical College Hospital's Mangalore Ambedkar Circle. I am here today to discuss regarding oral and maxillofacial surgery. Oral and maxillofacial surgery is that branch which deals with surgery of the face, jaws and oral cavity. It is a specialization of dentistry where once you finish your dentistry, you subspecialize an oral and maxillofacial surgery. It is an internationally acclaimed specialization. When we speak about oral and maxillofacial surgery, a maxillofacial surgeon is one who has been trained to deal with diverse situations. To encompass or speak about a few aspects, an oral and maxillofacial surgeon is one who deals with procedures where you entail or speak about removal of wisdom tooth. We also deal with patients who come to the trauma center or to the emergency room where we handle the patients with maxillofacial trauma. We work in conjunction with the neurosurgeons to render some of the best care possible. When I speak about maxillofacial trauma, it is only one aspect of oral and maxillofacial surgery. We are also looking at a diverse range of application of oral and maxillofacial surgery in today's field. We also treat patients who suffer from tumors and cysts of the orophacial region. In addition to that, implantology is an upcoming field where maxillofacial surgeons have set their foot into. And the recent development of all is where we have entered into an area which is referred to as total temporomandibular joint replacement, where patients come to us with constant pain involving the joints of the face, which we refer to as the temporomandibular joint. We replace the joints if they are not salvageable and we put in artificial joints for long-term stability and functional ease. In addition to these, we also entail surgical procedures for patients who come with facial deformity, where patients have their lower jaw placed forwardly or the upper jaw, which is placed in a backward direction. In popular terms, we would term this as orthognathic surgery or correction of the face or the dentofacial deformity using surgical procedures so that we can set the maxilla or the mandible or the lower jaw and the upper jaw back into its original position or into its new position, which is aesthetically acceptable. When we speak about maxillofacial surgery, it would not be fair on my part not to speak about management of patients who suffer from oral cancer. We have also become specialists in managing patients with oral cancer, secondary to smoking and tobacco chewing. We as maxillofacial surgeons have been trained to give back like to like and respect the patient's facial anatomy. In addition to this, we have also stepped into the field of aesthetic surgeries where we have gone in to restore and give back the patient a new look from an aged look. So to summarize what I would like to say is maxillofacial surgery is a branch which has diverse applications with regards to wisdom tooth removal or handling patients with maxillofacial trauma or managing patients with cysts and tumors of the oral cavity, application of maxillofacial surgery in oral cancer treatment, as well as temporomandibular joint, which is the new face of maxillofacial surgery where we go in and do our joint replacements, as well as you must have surely heard of knee arthroscopies. Now, we at KMC hospitals, Mangalore specialize in temporomandibular joint arthroscopies as well, where patients come with constant pain, which is refractory to any kind of treatment. In these situations, we put in a small camera into the joint and see if the joint can be salvaged before it goes into a stage of total joint replacement. These are the initial phases of how we treat our patients. In addition to these, we also treat children who come with a variety of craniofacial deformity. When I say craniofacial deformity, it is these children who come to us with syndromic kind of craniofacial deformities where they have a skull or the upper half of their head is like a tower or it is more anterior posteriorly wider. In these cases, we do these surgeries or perform these surgeries with the neurosurgeons, so that we can give the child an aesthetic outlook as well as reduce the intracranial complications secondary to these craniofacial anomalies. To summarize, all I would like to say is come to Kasurba hospital, Mangalore and utilize the facilities. We are well equipped to deal with diverse situations.