The program allows medical students the opportunity to gain clinical experience by shadowing surgeons and scrubbing in on cases in the operating room and participating in other procedures such as endoscopy and produce scholarship and gain research experience by participating in various selected research projects with a faculty or resident mentor. Students rotate on two surgical services in Acute Care Surgery, Breast, Burns, Colorectal, Craniofacial, General Surgery, Pediatrics, Plastics, Surgical Oncology, Thoracic, Transplant, Trauma, and/or Vascular during the program.
Throughout the program, multiple faculty members from the Department of Surgery come to speak to the student participants about the various career paths that are possible after a general surgery residency, such as Plastics, Thoracic, Trauma, Vascular, etc. Our program director also speaks to the students about the grades, scores, and other factors that are expected for an applicant to successfully match in general surgery residency. There are multiple hands-on educational sessions during the four-week program such as learning proper scrub technique, operating room etiquette, and surgical instrument identification; suturing and knot tying; and simulations sessions to learn intubation, chest tube placement, laparoscopy, endoscopy, and ultrasound–guided central line placement.
One previous student participant commented: “I came into the program really questioning if surgery was for me. I left four weeks later with an emphatic ‘YES’ in my mind.”
We hold an informational session in the fall for M1 students to learn more about the program. We typically distribute applications to the M1 class shortly after the first of the year.
To learn more about the program, please watch the Summer In Surgery Presentation.