In Tompkins v. Bise, 13 259 Kan. 39, 910 P.2d 185 (1996), the Kansas Supreme Court held that, under that state's statute governing medical malpractice suits, a dentist specializing in OMS could give an expert opinion at trial about the standard of care applicable to a surgeon who was trained in OMS and performed OMS procedures. The governing statute required that an expert testifying against a medical doctor in a malpractice case devote at least "50% of his or her professional time within the two-year period preceding the incident . . . to actual clinical practice in the same profession in which the defendant is licensed." Id. at 43 (quoting K.S.A. 60-3412). The defendant physician had been trained in surgery, plastic surgery, and cranial maxillofacial surgery; also, before attending medical school, he had graduated from dental school and had practiced dentistry. His license to practice dentistry in Kansas was inactive. He had operated on the plaintiff to repair two jaw fractures suffered in a motorcycle accident. After the plaintiff experienced complications from the surgery, he brought suit for medical malpractice against the defendant physician and designated an OMS dentist as his expert witness on the standard of care. The defendant filed a motion to strike the OMS dentist as an expert witness, arguing that dentistry and medicine are different "professions," as they are licensed by different state boards, and therefore, pursuant to K.S.A. section 60-3412, the OMS dentist was not qualified to testify against him. The trial court disagreed and allowed the OMS dentist to testify at trial. The OMS dentist opined that the physician defendant was performing OMS when he operated on the plaintiff, and that the way in which the surgery was performed by the defendant physician departed from the standard of care for an OMS. Specifically, the expert OMS dentist testified that the defendant physician should have performed an open, rather than a closed, reduction, and, had he done so, problems the plaintiff experienced with a muscle pull in the jaw would have been resolved. The jury in the case returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff. On appeal, the Kansas Supreme Court agreed with the trial court's decision to allow the OMS dentist to testify as a standard of care expert against the physician defendant. The court rejected the argument that, because dentists and physicians are licensed by different boards, they cannot be practicing in the "same profession" under any circumstance, and therefore can never be qualified to testify as standard of care expert witnesses against each other. The court emphasized that, even though the defendant was a physician and the expert witness was a dentist, they "were both qualified to diagnose and treat the plaintiff's jaw injury." 259 Kan. at 47. The court observed that although the licensure of the defendant physician and the expert dentist differed, "both were trained in and practiced oral and maxillofacial surgery." Id. The court concluded that the expert witness had the requisite amount of actual clinical practice in the same profession in which the defendant physician was licensed -- OMS -- to satisfy the requirements of the statute. It noted that the fact that the testifying expert was a dentist went to the weight to be given to his testimony by the factfinder, not to his qualification to testify.