SENIOR ELECTIVES:
Recommendations for senior electives are primarily dependent upon the student's
ultimate career goals. Students interested in a career in academic surgery or
hoping to train in an academic program should consider spending time in pursuit
of a surgical research project. For information about surgical research
options, students should contact Drs. Max Schmidt or Dan Meldrum or discuss
research interests with Dr. Lillemoe. Students likely to seek a career in the
private practice of surgery might wisely choose to take a few months of surgical
elective, including a rotation in a community practice setting. Regardless, the
bulk of the remaining time in their senior year should be filled with general
medical educational electives they might not experience as a resident. Examples
of these would be: cardiology, endocrinology, renal medicine and radiology, just
to name a few. In general, there is no set program of senior electives required
of students going into a surgical training program, with the exception of
students who apply for the senior honors program in surgery. The latter
require two months in a research elective in one of the research laboratories in
the Department of Surgery and an additional clinical elective month in general
surgery or one of the surgical subspecialties. It is best to take the two months
of research consecutively.
HONORS:
Students with a strong interest in Surgery will be selected for this designation
by the Chairman for their interest in a surgical career and demonstrated
aptitude in surgical skills, research, and clinical performance. Excellence in
surgical studies will qualify the student for “Honors” designation in Surgery. This designation requires three months of elective work at IUMC; either two
months in research laboratory and one clinical month or one month research, one
clinical month and one month with the surgical internship preparation elective. The student must be ranked in the upper half of the class and have USMLE Step I
scores >220.
During the clinical month, the student will become an “associate intern” on any one of the clinical surgical services at the Medical Center. He/She will be responsible for admission and evaluation of patients, assisting at operations and planning postoperative care. He/She will attend all conferences and assume responsibility for their portion of patient care under the direction of the senior resident and faculty.
The surgical internship preparation elective (held in April) may be substituted for one month of laboratory research. This didactic month will offer hands-on training in technical skills and discussions into clinical topics related to the practice of surgery, especially relevant to the new surgical resident.
Students interested in pursuing the Honors program should meet with Dr. Alan Ladd to declare their intent on fulfillment of the requisite study. They should then fill out an application and submit it to Rhonda Brock, Clerkship Coordinator.
GRADUATE SURGICAL TRAINING:
The first year of a graduate surgical training program is not only the first
step toward a career in general surgery, but may be a prerequisite for graduate
training in one of the surgical subspecialties. A one- or two-year core
experience in General Surgery is required for students desiring a career in
Neurosurgery, Urology or Otolaryngology. The disciplines such as Cardiovascular
and Thoracic surgery, General Vascular surgery, Colorectal surgery and Pediatric
surgery at present require completion of five years of a general surgery
residency prior to entering specialized training in these areas. Students
interested in pursuing a career in these areas should contact Drs. John Brown
(Cardiovascular Surgery), Paul Nelson (Neurosurgery), Michael Dalsing (General
Vascular Surgery), Michael Koch (Urology), Richard Miyamoto (Otolaryngology),
and Fred Rescorla (Pediatric Surgery). There are various pathways to a career
in Plastic Surgery with three, four, or the traditional five years (full
training) of training in General Surgery prior to entering postgraduate
training. Interested students should contact the Director of Plastic Surgery
(Dr. John Coleman) to discuss these possibilities. Regardless of a student's
ultimate career goals, the underlying philosophy for obtaining graduate
education in surgery should be to obtain the best possible training available in
a program that provides a contemporary, broad-based general surgery experience.
The General Surgery program at IU includes five years of clinical training and
an option of one or more years entirely dedicated to research. Interested
students can contact the Chairman (Dr. Keith Lillemoe) or the Director of
General Surgery (Dr. Eric Wiebke) for more details.
Candidates should write for information concerning programs in which they are interested, efficiently complete applications and fulfill internship interviews as early as possible, so that they will be considered serious applicants. Those students who wish to apply for surgical internship/residency at the Indiana University Medical Center or who will request recommendations from the faculty in this department to other programs should consider one or two surgical electives early in the senior year on the IU campus, so that the student's abilities might be evaluated closely by the surgical faculty.
All of the other factors usually involved in selection of program choices, such as university vs. non-university programs, geographic location, call schedules, pay, etc., should be secondary to the goal of obtaining the best graduate surgical education available. In general, the university programs offer a uniformly good training opportunity, combining adequate clinical experience with both educational and research opportunities. On the other hand, experience at non-university programs may vary from excellent to poor and the quality of training depends primarily on the interest of the attending surgeons assigned to graduate medical education.
SUMMARY:
Any student who is interested in a potential career in surgery or one of its
subspecialties should seek advice from one of the faculty members in the
Department of Surgery as soon as this interest is definite. All of the faculty
members of the Department of Surgery are willing to discuss graduate surgical
training with students at any time and are receptive to serve as advisors.
Keith D. Lillemoe, M.D.
Professor and Chairman
Department of Surgery