What an MDS means on a doctor's profile
The MDS is the three-year postgraduate dental degree; its branches — orthodontics, oral surgery, prosthodontics, endodontics — are the dental specialities.
The MDS is the postgraduate degree of dentistry: three years after the BDS, entered through NEET-MDS, in one of the recognised branches — orthodontics, oral and maxillofacial surgery, prosthodontics, conservative dentistry and endodontics, periodontics, paediatric dentistry, oral pathology, oral medicine and radiology, public health dentistry. An MDS (Orthodontics) holder is an orthodontist; an MDS (Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery) holder is the surgeon who removes impacted wisdom teeth and repairs jaw fractures.
As with the medical MD, the branch is what matters and it is written in brackets. The measured block below shows which branches the MDS holders on this site record; the orthodontics and oral and maxillofacial surgery branches have pages of their own.
A patient meets an MDS holder when a general dentist refers on: to an orthodontist for braces, an oral surgeon for an impacted tooth, a periodontist for gum disease, an endodontist for a difficult root canal, a prosthodontist for implants and dentures. Any BDS holder may do all of these; the MDS is three years of training in one of them, and the degree on the profile is what tells you which you are seeing.
How to check whether a dentist holds an MDS
Dental qualifications are recognised by the National Dental Commission — the Dental Council of India until 19 March 2026 — and the Indian Dentists Register records the qualification each state dental council registered. Search the dentist there, and confirm the college was recognised for the course; the awarding university can verify the certificate itself. On this site a dental qualification is marked as supplied until a person has checked it, because the automated worker reads only the NMC's medical register.
517 doctors record an MDS
None of them has the qualification checked against the awarding body yet. All are recorded as supplied. Counts are read from the live database and refresh hourly.
Branches as written on profiles
| Branch | Doctors |
|---|---|
| Orthodontics | 56 |
| Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery | 32 |
| Prosthodontics | 25 |
| Endodontics | 23 |
| Periodontics | 22 |
| Maxillofacial Surgery | 16 |
| Pedodontics | 12 |
| Oral Pathology | 10 |
Specialities they practise
Where they practise
Branches with their own page
- MDS (Orthodontics) — MDS in Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopaedics
- MDS (Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery) — MDS in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
Questions people ask
- Is an MDS a recognised qualification in India?
- Yes, when awarded by an institution recognised for it. The National Dental Commission maintains the list of recognised qualifications and of the institutions permitted to award each; an MDS from a college that was not recognised for the course in that year is not a recognised qualification, and a registering body can refuse to enter it on the register.
Every profile lists its qualifications as supplied and says which of them have been checked against the awarding body and when. Where none has, the profile says so.
General information about medical qualifications in India, checked against the sources listed on 25 Sep 2026. Not advice about your situation. Errors can be reported through the corrections process.