The Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and Special Diagnostic Imaging was established in April 2006 – in the year when the Faculty of Dental Medicine was created. Since 2013 it has been an independent Department for training on surgical disciplines in Dental Medicine and in the respective Diagnostic Imaging of surgical diseases in maxillofacial area.
The first head of the Department is Assoc. Prof. Vasil Sveshtarov, PhD. He is the founder and the first Dean of the most modern Faculty of Dental Medicine in the Republic of Bulgaria - the one at Medical University - Varna.
Two training facilities have been used for student training: the outpatient facilities at the Faculty of Dental Medicine and the clinical facilities at "St. Marina" University Hospital at the Clinic of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery.
The Department obtained programme accreditation of "Surgical Dentistry" Doctoral Programme in 2010.
Thanks to a successfully accomplished project for donation of microsurgical equipment from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the latest operating methods in Microsurgery (free vascularized transplants) in the reconstruction of large defects of the head and neck have been introduced. Programmes in the latest dental disciplines and specialties which completely meet the standards of the European Union have been developed after a successfully accomplished follow-up educational project, again in cooperation with JICA. Furthermore, a donation project for 100 titanium AO mini-slabs for reconstructive surgery and face traumatology has been accomplished successfully.
