Program Overview

About Our General Surgery Program

We are a community-based program with all the benefits of a large health system, providing access to the latest technology and innovations in surgery. This is a 5-year program that offers residents a broad experience in general and specialized surgery with a good balance of clinical training and structured education.

Our main goal is to prepare residents for a career in general surgical practice or post-residency fellowship training. Our residents graduate our program practice-ready, with many of our graduates deciding to enter private practices after graduation. Our program also prepares our residents who desire to pursue a fellowship to match into highly competitive specialties and programs including cardiothoracic surgery, trauma surgery/surgical critical care, plastic surgery, colorectal surgery, vascular surgery, minimally invasive/bariatric surgery, and breast surgery. See our “Alumni” page for more details on our graduates.

Progression from PGY-1 to PGY-5 involves a graded increase in responsibility commensurate with the resident's skills and abilities. Operative experience begins on day one as a surgical intern. Recent chief surgical residents have graduated with approximately 1,100-1,200 major cases. Our base hospitals at Henry Ford Warren and Madison Heights have no fellows rotating, so our residents are able to gain additional levels of experience in advanced cases working directly with attendings that may go to a fellow at another program.

Our program offers many unique aspects and offers a wide variety of rigorous general surgery experiences in open, laparoscopic, and robotic surgery. Our residents graduate with an advanced understanding of multiple techniques with a breadth of experience that allows them to be practice-ready. We pride ourselves on our experiences in specialty surgical specialties as well.

We have a very active bariatric/minimally invasive/foregut surgery service (25-35 cases/month). Surgical residents cover all cases on the service, including both robotic and laparoscopic revisional bariatric surgery, Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, sleeve gastrectomy, and hiatal hernia repair.

We also have a very busy vascular surgery service with residents covering all cases including open procedure and endovascular in the OR and cath lab. Residents also gain early experience starting intern year with obtaining vascular access including central lines, temporary dialysis catheters, and permacathers for dialysis access.

Our program also uniquely offers high-volume endoscopy experiences with opportunities in colonoscopy and EGD with interventions. Our residents complete a month rotation with GI as a PGY-2 to gain beginning experience with endoscopy. Graduates of the program log about 270 EGDs and 190 colonoscopies during residency.

Didactics/Simulations

See our Curriculum and Simulations tabs for additional information.

Our program’s didactics and education schedule include:

• Twice weekly protected 2 hours of education time following the SCORE curriculum in preparation for ABSITE
• Weekly M&M conference
• Tumor board twice a month
• Monthly journal club including journal article presentations by residents and provided dinner
• Annual Trauma Day at Henry Ford Warren with trauma lectures and skills/simulation stations
• Annual participation in the annual Detroit Trauma Symposium at the MGM Grand Detroit conference with lectures from trauma specialists from around the region and country

In addition to the program's own didactic schedule, all general surgical residency programs in Michigan participate in a monthly educational conference with guest speakers on major surgical topics through the Michigan GME Alliance.

All general surgery residents take the annual American Board of Surgery In-Training Exam (ABSITE) in January.