Education

Program Overview

Dr. Stanley Ashley is the Vice Chair of the Department of Surgery and the Program Director for the General Surgery Residency at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH). The five-year ACGME accredited general surgery residency provides surgical education of the highest caliber leading to American Board of Surgery Certification in general surgery within an environment designed to encourage clinical and basic scientific investigational experience.

The surgical training at Brigham and Women's and our affiliated teaching hospitals provides a potential inpatient population approximating 1,300. These combined hospital facilities allow each surgical trainee to obtain a large operative experience early in the training program and to develop independent responsibility in the pre and postoperative care of a variety of surgical patients. Most residents upon completion of their chief resident year have performed between 1,000 and 1,200 major operations. Outpatient surgery is performed on the Cushing Service, at the West Roxbury VA Medical Center and with attending surgeons from the BWH staff as well as with faculty based at Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates.

Many Brigham surgical graduates enter subspecialty fellowships following completion of their general surgery training. Recent graduates have matched for fellowships in surgical oncology, pediatric surgery, vascular surgery, cardiothoracic surgery and plastic surgery. Approximately 80% of the residents graduating from this program have pursued academic careers, usually starting at the Assistant Professor level.

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Objectives

To offer a general surgical residency through which the residency program graduate qualifies for board examination and the assumption of independent responsibilities in clinical practice after five clinical years of residency training

To provide the first two years as a core junior surgical residency, preparing the candidate for further training in general surgery or in the surgical specialties.  

To maximize the trainee's responsibilities in patient management both in and out of the operating room, starting in the first year.

To encourage those individuals interested in careers in academic surgery to develop the necessary skills in surgical research, education and/or administration through a broad range of available opportunities designed to maximize academic development.

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Junior Residency Years

Nineteen residents are appointed annually to the first postgraduate year of the general surgery program. Eight are matched for the full five-year categorical program in general surgery. Eleven are matched for the one-year designated preliminary general surgery program. The designated preliminary positions are reserved for those who have matched with Harvard surgical residencies in combined plastic surgery, otolaryngology, urology, neurosurgery, or orthopedics.

The PGY-1 year of the junior surgical residency consists of rotations through the general surgery services at BWH, Faulkner Hospital, South Shore Hospital, West Roxbury VA Medical Center, as well as the emergency department, neurosurgery, plastic surgery, otolaryngology, pediatric surgery, thoracic surgery, urology, and orthopedics.

For categorical general surgery residents continuing on into the PGY-2 year, there are rotations through the BWH general surgery services, cardiac surgery, surgical ICU's, burn/trauma, West Roxbury VA Medical Center,  Faulkner Hospital and a community hospital rotation at South Shore Hospital.

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Senior Residency Years

Eight residents are appointed annually to each of the PGY-3, PGY-4 and PGY-5 (chief resident) years of the categorical general surgery program. The PGY-3 year includes rotations through the BWH general surgery services, general surgery at the Faulkner Hospital,  emergency department, thoracic surgery and transplantation. The PGY-4 year provides a varied experience on the general surgical services at BWH, the Faulkner Hospital, South Shore Hospital and Children's Hospital Boston. The PGY-5 year provides chief resident responsibility as required for ABS eligibility and consists of rotations through the general surgery services at BWH, the Faulkner Hospital, and West Roxbury VA.

Our General Surgery Services are named after our former Chairs of the Surgery Department, and include the Cushing, Cutler, Mannick, Moore and Chief's service. Please read our General Surgery Service Descriptions  and Surgical Faculty for more information and a listing of all faculty by division

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Conferences

In addition to the daily teaching in the OR and in the wards, there are weekly and daily didactic sessions on both the general surgery services as well as the subspecialties. On Wednesday mornings, there is a Morbidity and Mortality Conference that both faculty and residents attend, followed by Surgical Grand Rounds providing our faculty and residents with speakers of national prominence with a wide variety of surgical topics and advances in the surgical field. After Grand Rounds, there is a core curriculum conference which covers basic surgical topics and techniques and is based on Greenfield's text and the ABS SCORE curriculum. This conference has one or two faculty presenters, and is only attended by residents. There are also clinical case conferences for Surgical Oncology, Vascular Surgery, Thoracic Surgery and GI Surgery. Dr. Michael Zinner, BWH's Surgeon-in-Chief, also holds morning case presentations each week, and Pizza Rounds on Wednesday afternoon is an interactive case discussion with key faculty, residents, and pizza.

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Research Opportunities

Many residents choose to complete two years of laboratory study or other academic career development in addition to the five clinical years of the program. Among the research or career development opportunities currently being pursued by our residents are basic science bench research in a variety of Harvard or outside labs, pursuit of an M.P.H. or M.Ed. degree from Harvard School of Public Health or pursuit of an M.B.A. degree from the Harvard Business School.

The Department of Surgery has several NIH Training grants, which allow us to fund trainees who wish to pursue research in GI Surgery, Surgical Oncology or Trauma. Many residents have obtained their own funding through various research grant and scholarship programs. For additional information on BWH research and research funding please visit our Department of Surgery research page.

Research training in alimentary tract surgery (T32)
Research training in cardiovascular surgery (T32)
Research training in surgical oncology (T32)
Research training in vascular surgery (T32)

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Application Overview

The general surgery residency program matches with eight new residents each year for the five-year categorical program. Eight chief residents will graduate each year. The only non-categorical positions for which we match in the general surgery program are reserved for those designated preliminary interns who have matched for a position with one of our surgical specialty programs for their PGY-2 year. Residency positions for the general surgery program at Brigham and Women's Hospital are matched via the National Resident Matching Program. The NRMP number for the categorical positions is 126519 and for the preliminary positions it is 126518.

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Application Requests

We are currently recruiting for residency positions to begin in mid-June 2010. All resident applicants must register with the NRMP in addition to requesting an application to from AAMC ERAS electronic residency application system. Programs participating in ERAS may only accept those application materials sent electronically through ERAS. We will not accept any additional supporting documents by mail. Please contact ERAS at www.aamc.org.

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Requirements and Deadline

We require the following documents to be available for download through ERAS for a complete application to be reviewed: curriculum vitae, medical school transcript, personal statement, Dean's Letter, and three letters of recommendation.  We do not review any applications until they are complete. Our deadline for receipt of your general surgery residency application and all supporting documents is November 15, 2009.

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Selection of Interview Candidates 

Each application is reviewed in its entirety with an eye toward a combination of overall academic excellence, leadership ability, career development potential and personal character.

We interview approximately 100 candidates for the general surgery program each year. Although we receive applications from hundreds of well-qualified candidates, it is not possible to interview all who apply. All invitations are sent through email via ERAS, after the deadline of November 15, 2009.  We contact all candidates with an invitation or decline. Every effort is made to notify applicants of their interview status in a timely manner; however our application review process often continues through the end of November due to the large number of applications received.

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Interview Dates

This year's interview dates for the General Surgery Residency Program will be announced as soon as they are confirmed.

We do not schedule any individual interviews outside of the scheduled group interview sessions. Any candidate who is invited to interview must contact the surgery education office  to confirm their acceptance of the interview offer. If we do not receive a confirming e-mail or letter from you by the given R.S.V.P. date, we will not be able to schedule you for the interview. 

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Interview Format

The format for the day of the interview begins with a continental breakfast at check in, followed by an hour-long group orientation session with Dr. Stanley Ashley, the General Surgery Residency Program Director, Dr. Douglas Smink, the Associate Program Director, and Dr. Michael Zinner, the Department Chairman and Surgeon-in-Chief.

Following the orientation session, each candidate will be interviewed by three or four key faculty members in one-on-one meetings. General surgery residents will be on hand throughout the morning to visit informally with the candidates between interviews and to conduct hospital tours. The interview session concludes with a buffet luncheon attended by all candidates, faculty and general surgery residents.

For purposes of making travel arrangements, applicants may anticipate being finished with all interview and tour activities by 2:00 p.m. Please see our travel arrangements and hotel accommodations page for more information.

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