{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/oral-and-maxillofacial-surgeons/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons",
    "soc_code": "29-1022",
    "category": "Healthcare",
    "us_employment": 4910,
    "median_annual_wage": 352220
  },
  "verdict": "SAFE",
  "risk_resistance": 92,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 18,
    "embodiment": 20,
    "liability_shield": 20,
    "trust_premium": 16,
    "judgment_accountability": 18
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Nothing in the daily list — luxating an ankylosed molar, osteotomizing a mandible for a BSSO, harvesting an iliac crest graft, packing a bleeding socket at 11pm — has a digitizable substitute; only the CBCT read, surgical guide design, and treatment-plan modeling are software-assisted, which is why this sits at 18 and not 20.",
    "embodiment": "You work inside a living airway with a handpiece and elevators, on patients who are sedated and whose bleeding, gag reflex, and unexpected sinus perforation happen in real time — the operative field is unmapped soft tissue, not a controlled workspace, which is the top of the scale.",
    "liability_shield": "You hold a DDS/DMD, a state dental license with an oral surgery specialty designation, and in most states a separate general-anesthesia or deep-sedation permit with facility inspection — a nerve injury or an anesthesia death is prosecuted against your license and your name on the consent form, with no institutional buffer if you own the practice.",
    "trust_premium": "Patients arrive on referral from a general dentist or ENT and consent to having their jaw broken and rewired largely on your explanation of the risk of permanent lingual nerve numbness — but many cases are one-visit extractions where the relationship ends after the post-op check, which keeps this at 16 rather than the 19 of a long-horizon specialty.",
    "judgment_accountability": "Deciding whether to coronectomy versus fully extract a third molar sitting on the inferior alveolar nerve, whether to plate or wire a condylar fracture, or whether to abort sedation on a patient whose airway looks worse than the pre-op assessment suggested — these are calls made with incomplete information, minutes to decide, and consequences measured in permanent facial deficit."
  },
  "rationale": "The core of this job is cutting: extracting impacted third molars, placing implants, grafting bone, reducing facial fractures, and resecting oral tumors — all performed by hand inside a live airway under sedation or general anesthesia. AI can read a CBCT scan, flag a lesion, and draft the operative note, but it cannot manage a bleeding pterygoid plexus or make the intraoperative call to abandon an implant plan when bone quality is worse than imaged. Dual DDS/DMD plus surgical residency, state licensure, and anesthesia permitting make the human operator legally mandatory.",
  "outlook": "Demand grows with an aging population needing implants and with steady facial trauma volume; AI reshapes imaging, planning, and documentation while the surgeon's hands and license stay indispensable.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Patient-facing surgical robotics (e.g. Yomi/Neocis-style haptic implant guidance) becoming common in general-dentist offices, which would let OMS practices market fully surgeon-performed complex cases (orthognathic, pathology, trauma) as the human-judgment tier buyers specifically seek out and pay for",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Formalized head-and-neck tumor board rules or hospital credentialing language naming the operating OMS as the accountable decision-maker for margin and reconstruction calls when AI planning software output is overridden",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Guided-implant planning, CBCT lesion detection, and operative-note drafting being fully absorbed by software, leaving a day composed of trauma call, pathology resection, and airway management — the genuine judgment tier of the role",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 2
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "At 92 the score is near ceiling; embodiment and liability_shield are already maxed and the realistic movement is only a few points from task-mix concentration."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 4800,
        "wage": 239200
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 4830,
        "wage": 239200
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 4650,
        "wage": 239200
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 4120,
        "wage": 239200
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 5330,
        "wage": 239200
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 4290,
        "wage": 239200
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 4160,
        "wage": 239200
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 5330,
        "wage": 239200
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 4910,
        "wage": 352220
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 2.3,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}