Program & Rotations

The Residency Program

The Department of Surgery believes strongly in the role of the surgeon in the continuous care of his or her patients. Throughout your residency in the Division of General Surgery, you will see patients both pre- and postoperatively on every service. The only exceptions will be when you leave the service for another rotation.

PGY-1

Your initial year is primarily dedicated to pre- and postoperative care, but you will perform many basic operations - for example, hernia repair, removal of pilonidal cysts, appendectomies, and simple mastectomies. You will gain broad experience from rotations through a variety of surgical specialties, including thoracic surgery, vascular surgery, pediatric surgery, and transplantation. You will also gain broad general surgery experience at a private hospital general surgery service. You will also participate in a laparoscopic training course including didactics, basic surgical skills, a simulator course, and an animal lab.

PGY-2

The second year is organized to give you experience in additional surgical specialties with an emphasis on critical care. You will rotate on the burn service, cardiothoracic service, trauma service and a private hospital general surgery service. You will do a Practice-Based Learning and Improvement clinical rotation, in which you will design and implement a Quality Improvement project, develop individual learning plan and develop your complex clinical thinking skills.  Rotations outside of the department occur on anesthesiology, endoscopy, and critical care.

Research

Two additional research years may be taken between the second and third years of your residency. This research experience accommodates four of the six categorical residents each year. Residents often present their laboratory and clinical research at a variety of national meetings. During this time residents have chosen to do basic science, translational, clinical trials/outcomes research.  You can also enroll in an advanced degree program during your research years. Click here, to see a current list of resident research topics and the conferences they presented at.

PGY-3

Your third year consists of general surgery rotations at UW Hospital and Clinics and the adjacent VA Hospital. You will be first assistant on many major operations. You will be primary surgeon on most operations of moderate difficulty - e.g., complex herniorraphy, mastectomy, cholecystectomy, partial colectomy, and thyroid lobectomy. On the transplant service at UW Hospital, you will perform many of the cadaver renal transplants, most of the vascular access procedures, and a majority of the general surgical operations on patients on the transplant service. You will also have busy rotations in vascular surgery, surgical oncology and colon and rectal surgery.

PGY-4

The fourth year will be the first to provide you with senior responsibilities. You are the senior resident on the pediatric surgery and trauma surgery services. In addition you will rotate as the chief of the night float service during this year. Additional time is spent on dedicated Breast Surgery, Minimally Invasive, Thoracic and VAH vascular rotations.

Chief Residency

Your chief residency consists of five rotations. Two of these are on the two general surgery services at UW Hospital, one on the general surgery service at the VA Hospital, and one on the general surgery service at Meriter Hospital. The remaining rotations include an Acute Care service, Breast and Endocrine and Minimally Invasive surgery.

Rotation Schedule

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General Surgery University of Wisconsin Department of Surgery
First published: 07/15/02 Last updated: 11/07/09 webmaster@surgery.wisc.edu
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