Didactic Education

Weekly Protected Education Time

We have weekly Morbidity and Mortality Conferences in which three residents will present one case each to the faculty and residency program. This conference is immediately followed by a 1-2 hr lecture prepared by residents with faculty oversight on a designated topic. There is always a faculty moderator for each lecture. The assigned faculty comes prepared with imaging, interesting cases, or a mock oral board scenario to augment the lecture. A yearly surgical text is selected and the lectures are built from selected chapters from the assigned surgical text with the goal of preparing residents for the annual inservice exam (ABSITE). These chapters are provided to residents ahead of time as weekly reading assignments. The remaining 1-2 hrs of protected education time on Fridays is given to residents to work on scholarly activity, logging, studying, and/or administrative assignments. During this protected weekly education time, residents are free of clinical responsibilities so as not to limit resident ability to focus on scholarly activity and research. View an example of our didactic education curriculum.

Statewide Campus System (SCS)

Our residency program belongs to Michigan State University’s Statewide Campus in which 26 hospitals collaborate on surgical resident education. During the PGY-1 year, monthly workshops are held to establish foundational education and skills of the surgical intern. During the PGY-2 year, residents will travel for an Anatomy lab with cadaveric education. Bi-monthly lectures are also broadcasted to all of the collaborating hospital systems for pertinent surgical topics.

Scholarly Activity

Program requirements for residents include completing one Quality Improvement (QI) Project and one Scientific Research Project. Each resident must be the lead investigator on one of these two projects, while the other project can be in collaboration with other residents.

Journal Club

The residency hosts a quarterly journal club which is typically held off of the hospital campus in which residents and faculty discuss current literature published on a variety of surgical topics.

Tumor Board

Multi-disciplinary review boards are held on a weekly basis for General and Thoracic Surgery. Residents are encouraged to attend and participate based on their scheduled service.

Grand Rounds

Quarterly General Surgery and monthly Trauma Grand Rounds are hosted by Henry Ford Jackson Hospital in which guest speakers will be brought in to discuss pertinent surgical and medical topics relating to specialty specific practice guidelines.

Surgical Certification Courses

Surgical residents are trained and certified in various skills courses including Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery (FLS), Fundamentals of Endoscopic Surgery (FES), Basic Life Support (BLS), Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS), Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS), Advanced Burn Life Support (ABLS), and Fundamental Use of Surgical Energy (FUSE).