About the Program
The Stamford Hospital Residency Program in General Surgery provides residents with an exceptionally broad range of surgical experience. The goal of the program is to train surgeons to perform at the high level typical of a board-certified specialist, equally prepared for academic post-residency fellowship or clinical practice, and instilled with a strong and lasting commitment to self-education.
Residents learn to provide excellence in patient care at all levels. With a large volume and range of cases, and no surgical fellowship program, surgical residents get a wide variety of experience and exposure. The program educates surgeons for the practice of general surgery in basic sciences while also providing an opportunity to develop cognitive and technical skills, clinical knowledge, and maturity in the acquisition of surgical judgment. The goal is the development of a true general surgeon, at ease in any situation.
Our residents are trained to evaluate and manage a large number of patients. During the 5-year program, our residents rotate through various services within the hospital, general surgery as well as specialty services including bariatric, breast, ambulatory, endocrine, gastrointestinal, laparoscopic, pediatric, oncologic, thoracic, trauma and critical care, urologic and vascular surgery. Residents are also involved in orthopedics, neurosurgical and plastic surgery cases.
Specific training and certification includes:
- Extensive robotic surgery exposure and training
- FLS (Fundamentals of Laproscopic Surgery) training
- ATLS (Advanced Trauma Life Support ) certification
- BLS(Basic Life Support) /ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life Support) training
An extensive surgical laboratory is a key component of the residency program. The program offers a wide range of skills training, including open surgical simulation and extensive laparoscopic simulation. Stamford Hospital also offers robotic surgery training on a large number of specialties using the Mimic, the hospital's robotic simulation device.
Facilities
Stamford Hospital is a 305 bed facility with inpatient beds in medicine, surgery, obstetrics/gynecology, psychiatry, and medical and surgical critical care units. Our facilities include:
- 9 operating rooms on the main hospital campus, including two state of the art operating suites for cardiac surgery
- The high volume ambulatory surgery Tully Center that includes 8 operating suites
- A high volume Level II Trauma Center
- Endoscopy Center
- Center for Robotic Surgery
Stamford Hospital's smaller size, and its affiliation with Columbia University New York/Presbyterian Healthcare System, combines the benefits of training at a smaller academic teaching hospital with access to the resources of a larger system. Our residents travel outside the hospital to Bridgeport Hospital in Connecticut for extensive burn/wound care experiences, Columbia University in New York for a liver transplant rotation, and travel to the University Medical Center in Las Vegas, Nevada for a more extensive operative trauma experience.
All residents are expected to participate in research throughout the program. Annually, our residents submit abstracts to the Connecticut Chapter of the American College of Surgeons to compete among their peers. Over the last 5 years, several papers have been published.
In recent years, our graduate residents have moved on to competitive fellowships in trauma, vascular, plastic surgery, colorectal and minimally invasive surgery programs. Our residents come back often to tell us their training provided them with the ability to practice safely, reliably and with all the technical skills required to operate.
Click here to learn more about our Department of Surgery.