Richard Nessif, D.D.S., joined the UF College of Dentistry as a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the end of July. Nessif’s main focus is on didactic and clinical instruction in the college’s DMD program, as well as in the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Residency Program. He also oversees patient care in the department’s resident clinic, the Student Oral Surgery clinic, and provides care in the department’s faculty practice and Center for Implant Dentistry.
Nessif came to Gainesville from Maryland after nearly four decades of success in private practice and as an Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery instructor and consultant.
A West Virginia native, Nessif completed his undergraduate work at Marshall University, before pursuing graduate studies at Marshall and the University of Toledo in Ohio. He earned his Doctor of Dental Surgery Degree in 1979 from West Virginia University’s School of Dentistry, and went on to complete a residency in Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery, or OMFS, at the University of Maryland Medical Center and School of Dentistry.
He immediately went into private practice, while simultaneously beginning his career in academics. He was a clinical instructor at the University of Vermont Medical Center in the Division of Dentistry and Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery for two years, before moving on to the University of Maryland Medical System where he spent 25 years as a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery.
Nessif also spent 14 years as a command consultant in OMFS at the Bethesda Naval Medical Center from 1991-2005.
He is board certified by the American Board of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, the National Dental Board of Anesthesiology and the Northeast Regional Dental Board. Nessif has been very involved in the profession throughout his career, with current membership in the American Dental Association, the American College of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons, the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons, the American Dental Society of Anesthesiology, the Middle Atlantic Society of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons, the Academy of Osseointegration, the International Team for Implantology and the American College of Dentists.
