Residency: First Year

The first-year trainees (PGY-1) rotate through all the integrated hospitals. The PGY-1 resident functions as a member of a surgical care team. Responsibilities include evaluation and planning for treatment of patients; attendance at rounds, clinics and conferences; assisting in the operating rooms; and participating with the educational staff for junior and senior medical students during their surgical clerkships and elective rotations.

While junior house officers have significant responsibility, close supervision and backup by more senior house officers and especially the faculty are always available. PGY-1 residents are expected to assume primary care for patients on their service on a day-to-day basis. They are expected to understand and perform the various tasks required for the care of patients with complex problems and those that are clinically ill and fulfill a variety of core competency requirements for this level of training. Goals and objectives are established for each level of training on all of the rotations.

A major goal of the department is to train the novice surgeon to understand the principles of pre- and post-operative care. The PGY-1 should gain valuable operating room experience both as an assistant as well as an operating surgeon working under close faculty supervision. The surgical house officer generally takes in-house call no more than every fourth night. Each resident will have a 24-hour period of time free from service call weekly. The work week is designed not to exceed 80 hours per week.

Approximately six months of the first year are spent in general surgical rotations and six months in the specialty services. The latter include experience in plastic surgery, urology, pediatric surgery, transplantation surgery, anesthesia, trauma and surgical critical care and cardiovascular surgery.

Several of the surgical specialties require one year of core general surgical training as a prologue to a career in orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, otolaryngology and anesthesia. Urology requires two years of core general surgical experience. While occasional concessions are made for subspecialty trainees regarding specialty rotations, the experience for those individuals will be essentially the same as individuals entering the general surgery program. Fourteen of the 23 PGY-1 positions are filled by persons entering subspecialty fields. Advancement in the General Surgery Program is limited to the nine individuals matched in categorical positions.

Rotations

Rotation	Length	Location
General Surgery	6 weeks	IU
General Surgery	6 weeks	IU
General Surgery	6 weeks	IU
General Surgery	6 weeks	VA
General Surgery	6 weeks	Methodist
Cardiac Surgery	6 weeks	Methodist
Pediatric Surgery	6 weeks	Riley
Transplant Surgery	6 weeks	IU
Trauma (ICU)	6 weeks	Methodist