Oral Surgery is a recent specialty in France. The first class of interns started in 2011. It is noteworthy that this specialty is shared by both medical and dental doctors. This training, which was developed by men of good will, replaces on the one hand the Diplôme d'Etudes Supérieures en Chirurgie Buccale which existed for dentists, and on the other hand the specialty of Stomatology which existed for medical doctors.

As the French philosopher Paul Valéry said: “Let's share the best of what we have and enrich one another with our mutual differences”. And it turns out that Oral Surgery interns are better trained than their predecessors, who lacked knowledge of either the medical or dental professions.

Just recently, the new specialty was admitted to the National Academy of Surgery. It is now one of the 13 surgical specialties that are part of this honorable institution.

The origin of the Academy dates back to 1748, during the reign of King Louis XV, when it was created under the name of Royal Academy of Surgery. First established at the Saint Côme theater in Paris, in the rue des Cordeliers (today rue de l'Ecole de Médecine), the Academy has sat in many remarkable buildings in Paris (Figs. 1–3).

In 1993, the institution, which of course has become the National Academy of Surgery, returned to the site of the Cordeliers, where its ancestor, the Royal Academy of Surgery, was founded (Figs. 4 and 5).

The reception session of the Oral Surgery took place on November 21, 2021, that is 273 years after the creation of this venerable institution. Several speakers including myself have had the honour of presenting to the assembly of our fellow surgeons some aspects of our speciality and our practice (such as history and evolution of Oral Surgery in France, dental implantology, bone grafts, dental transplants), which did not fail to raise many interested questions.

It is today both a fair recognition and a great pride for the French oral surgery to be admitted among the specialties that constitute this so prestigious institution. I am delighted and very proud of this on behalf of all our colleagues, our students and our patients. Jacques-Henri Torres, Doctor of Medicine and Doctor of Dental Surgery. President of the French Society of Oral Surgery.

© The authors, 2022

All Figures

	Fig. 1 Built by the architect Joubert, the prestigious anatomy theater of St Côme (5, rue de l'Ecole de Médecine in Paris), the first seat of the Academy, is today the Sorbonne's language school.
In the text

	Fig. 2 In 1775, the Academy moved to new premises. This building, designed by the architect Gandouin (12, rue de l'Ecole de Médecine), later housed the Faculty of Medicine of Paris. After 1968, it became the headquarters of the René Descartes University.
In the text

	Fig. 3 In 1852, the Academy moved into the old abbey palace of Saint-Germain-des-Prés (3, rue de l'Abbaye).
In the text

	Fig. 4 Meeting room, at the current seat of the Academy.
In the text

	Fig. 5 Library, current seat of the Academy.
In the text