Overall Education Goals
Flushing department of surgery is dedicated to teaching and serving patients, while fostering research to mold competent future surgeons. We are committed to educational development, and Our mission is to provide high quality compassionate surgical care to individuals from all walks of life.
CURICULUM
Our program is guided by the standards in the general surgery program requirements from the ACGME and the Surgery Residency Review Committee (S-RRC and has maintained its certification by The American Board of Surgery. Our program fulfills the requirements of these agencies in terms of its educational framework for the five years of training that are required for general surgery boards wherein a year equals a minimum of 48 weeks.
Adult learning strategies use visual, oral, and hands-on learning opportunities in the form of didactic lectures, review sessions, weekly quizzes, reading assignments, Robotic simulation training, teaching rounds on the wards, and supervised practice in pre- and operative care as well as in the operating room. Every Tuesday dedicated four-hour block time is set aside for educational activities. Residents are required to attend these sessions except for the post-call team who attend for one hour and those on outside rotations and on vacation who are excused. Additional educational activities include specialty-specific conferences and surgical intensive care journal clubs.
Our academic and clinical surgical curriculum follows SCORE content including: the alimentary tract; skin, soft tissues, and breast; endocrine surgery; head and neck surgery, the abdomen and its contents, pediatric surgery; surgical critical care; surgical oncology; trauma and non-operative trauma including burn; and the vascular system. In addition, Basic science topics are incorporated: applied surgical anatomy and surgical pathology; the elements of wound healing; hematologic disorders; immunobiology and transplantation; oncology; surgical endocrinology; homeostasis. To facilitate the longitudinal knowledge acquisition, weekly quizzes covering the SCORE content are delivered by core Faculty and mentored review sessions.
Critical care specific topics include but are not limited to shock and circulatory physiology; surgical nutrition, fluid and electrolyte balance; and the metabolic response to injury, including burns, acute kidney injury, delirium, and acute respiratory distress syndrome. Daily SICU teaching rounds include bedside rounds; didactics sessions and surgical critical care review questions are provided Hands on POCUS teaching is also available. In addition, Multidisciplinary monthly critical care conferences are offered. The residents rotating in the SICU also have the opportunity to teach medical students during their elective SICU week and sub-internship.
In preparation for January the American Board of Surgery In-Training Examination (ABSITE), faculty and chief residents led review questions sessions are provided in the two-three months prior to the exam. The exam is administered to all general surgery residents. The results are communicated individually to each resident and with the group to identify and evaluate deficient areas where the achievement was lower than expected. Mock Oral examinations are given each year to chief residents as a practice for the American Board of Surgery (ABS) examination to help residents get accustomed to the exam process.
A surgery education (Surg Ed) meeting is held monthly as an open forum for the input of residents, students and faculty on operative logs, duty hours, educational activities, outside rotation feedback, research activities, CIR report, and other issues that may arise. The general surgery faculty all contribute to the educational mission of residents and medical students rotating in the department. Teaching and learning activities include:
Teaching sessions:/h3>
- The Surgical Council on Resident Education (SCORE) curriculum (http://surgicalcore.org/) is a foundational resource for the formal didactics.
- Various textbooks are used such as Sabiston Textbook of Surgery, Schwartz
- Behind the knife Podcasts, and True Learn question bank are used by residents.
- Our Library uses CLINICAL KEY and offers 24/7 access full-text electronic journals, thousands of books, and many of medical information databases.
- Peer-reviewed surgical literature and information derived from presentations at national meetings are shared and discussed regularly at conferences.
- The basic and clinical sciences fundamental to surgery are addressed through the weekly Resident Teaching Conferences clinical and education conferences, morbidity and mortality (M&M) conferences, and attending walk rounds,
- Monthly research teaching conferences are provided by our robust Research Department.
- Multidisciplinary Tumor Board and Critical care lectures are offered monthly.
- Flushing surgery department offers additional educational activities for residents and faculty concerning duty hours and fatigue, giving and receiving feedback.
- Departmental wellness sessions are offered monthly to all residents.
- Certifications such as BLS, ACLS, ATLS, FLS, FES and other documentation of professional and scholarly activities.
- Hands-on workshops are provided for MIS, and vascular surgery
- Grand Rounds by our own Alumni are also offered quarterly.
RESEARCH
Scholarly activities are mandatory. Yearly residents of our department are involved in a minimum of 30 projects including quality improvement projects which are brought to fruition as posters presented at many national, regional and institutional meetings (SAGES, ACS, ACS Quality improvement, NYSSOMS and PAGNY, Flushing Annual research day), often culminating in about a dozen publications/ year. For the academic year 2024-2025, 23 posters were presented, 19 publications, 5 forum presentations A strong research department, the REI has been very instrumental in the quantity and quality of our projects.
Competency-based Goals and Objectives
Competency-based Goals and Objectives are shared on NI (New Innovations), with all residents before each rotation for all five years of training. Residents are supervised as they progress and given graduate responsibilities, and feedback meeting is offered after rotations
Block Schedule
PGY 1 – General Surgery (9 1/2 months), Anesthesia (1 month), Breast ( 2 weeks), vascular ( 1 month)
PGY 2 – General Surgery (10 months), GI (1 month), Surgical critical care (1 month)
PGY-3 – General surgery (5 months), Surgical critical care (3 months), Surgical oncology in MSK (3 months), Pediatric surgery in Cohen’s Children Hospital (1 month)
PGY 4 – General Surgery (7 months), Interventional radiology(1 month) Transplant in Westchester Medical Center (1 month), Burns in Westchester Medical Center (1 month), Trauma in Westchester Medical Center. Surgical oncology in MSK (1 month)
PGY 5 – General Surgery (12 months)
- An additional one-month elective rotation is offered.
EVALUATIONS- FEEDBACK
Reflection serves as a key to learning. Regular reflection on new knowledge and acquired skills is encouraged and expected.
Each resident is assigned a faculty mentor. We try to match the specialty interest of the resident with a faculty of the specialty. This mentor meets with the residents regularly in house in person but is also available on the phone at any time to review clinical, academic, professional , social interests and wellness activities.
In house and Outside Faculty and residents are required to give written evaluations on each resident who rotates through the services through the New Innovations (NI) software system after each rotation.
Verbal feedback from the attending physicians is expected and encouraged for all activities including oral patient presentation, bedside and OR procedures, conferences and research activities
SIMPLE app is used for Operative room procedure performance feedback.
The Program Director conducts regular reviews of residents at quarterly meetings and: provides in-depth feedback. When ABSITE results are available, the Program Director also offers suggestions and encouragement for areas in need of improvement as well as congratulations to those who excelled.
Peer evaluation and 360-degree evaluation of residents by nurses, surgical assistant, physician assistant are used for resident evaluations as well. Whenever issues arise or concern is voiced about the progress or conduct of residents, the Program Director or the Associate Program Director takes immediate action to provide counseling and feedback.
On a quarterly basis, each resident meets with the program director, associate program director, and the residency coordinator for a self-assessment as well as to receive feedback on the progress made in clinical skills, medical knowledge, review of op logs and research activities.
Milestones are completed every 6 months and shared with residents.
The overall surgery education program itself is evaluated each year by residents and the faculty.