The Department of General Surgery provides
patient care in the broad fields of gastrointestinal, endocrine, plastic, trauma, pediatric,
head and neck, cardiothoracic, vascular, burns, transplantation and surgical oncology in
addition to treating patients with surgical infections and soft tissue disease processes.
Active programs in laparoscopic surgery and Endoscopy further enrich the resident experience.
Throughout their rotations on the General
Surgery service, residents interact with faculty in the operating room, outpatient clinics
and hospital wards.
The department's philosophy is that
only by "hands on" active participation in the medical and surgical care of the patient
can surgical residents reach their clinical potential. Consequently, the faculty fosters
a program of progressive and graded responsibility of patient care beginning in the first
postgraduate year and culminating in the chief resident year.
The Department of Surgery has always
had a very strong clinical program and over the past decade has developed a very strong
and productive research division.
Every year each surgical resident is
required to present an original study which usually involve clinical studies and chart reviews
of topics of surgical interest. Since we have such a large clinical base, it is easy to
obtain extensive data for both prospective and retrospective clinical studies.
Between the third and fourth clinical
years of the Residency program the housestaff generally spends one year in the laboratory
working with a member of the Department of Surgery or with one of the related basic science
departments at the medical school. The residents have no clinical responsibilities during
this year, and they devote the entire year to research. This has become a very strong point
of the program in that many of the residents collect excellent data which are accepted at
both national and international meetings and are published in highly regarded journals.
This has proven to be very beneficial, specifically for those residents who desire further
fellowship training.