Sir, Mr McArdle's letter (BDJ 2006; 200: 2) regarding surgical dentistry training of oral and maxillofacial surgeons is inaccurate and misinforming. Most of the registrars have executed a prodigious number of dentoalveolar procedures over a period of 15-18 years of undergraduate and postgraduate training and indeed many were on the GDC's Surgical Dentistry specialist register even while training in oral and maxillofacial surgery (OMFS). Mr McArdle is not an oral and maxillofacial surgeon, nor is he a trainer for OMFS. He is on the Surgical Dentistry register. The training programme for OMFS is extensive and not part of his limited remit. He is wrong to state that RITA stands for Registrar in Training Assessment. It stands for Record of In-Training Assessment. The subtlety has escaped him, but sadly so has a lot else on this matter.

Regarding the issue of manpower planning for dentoalveolar services; most of the dentoalveolar surgery should be carried out by our GDP colleagues. It is a preposterous suggestion that the Department of Health should create and finance through the tax-payer another tier of consultants on the NHS called oral surgeons/surgical dentists to carry out bread-and-butter work that is part of the basic armamentarium of our GDPs. A dentist with a special interest in surgical dentistry/oral surgery appropriately remunerated is the most effective way to manage what are fundamentally out of hospital procedures. Most dentoalveolar waiting lists have been created in hospitals largely because it does not pay GDPs on NHS tariffs to carry out the work. The new proposed NHS contract will aggravate this. For the more complex problems where a hospital is required the service is already staffed by consultants in oral and maxillofacial surgery.