History
St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center is a 607-bed teaching hospital in Phoenix, Arizona, the fifth largest city in the United States. It is a major teaching affiliate of the University of Arizona in Tucson and Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. St. Joseph’s has a long history in surgical education. The hospital had a free standing residency in surgery that closed in early 1970’s but continued with an active affiliation with Maricopa Medical Center until 1992. In 1996, St. Joseph’s affiliated with the Phoenix Integrated Surgical Residency and became an integral component of the program in 1998. Both of these affiliations continued until 2004. St. Joseph's began an affiliation with the Surgery program from the Mayo Clinic-Scottsdale in 1998 to provide their residents a concentrated, comprehensive experience in Trauma. In 2005, residents also began rotating on general surgery. In addition to the general surgery affiliations, St. Joseph’s Trauma and general surgery services have ongoing relationships with individual residencies in Emergency Medicine (Texas Tech University Health Sciences in El Paso) and St. Joseph’s Hospital Family Practice Residency.
In 2006, St. Joseph's made a substantial commitment to the establishment of a general surgery residency program. The program has eleven full-time general surgical teaching faculty members; a significant portion of their duties include resident and staff teaching. The faculty has expertise in multiple aspects of general surgery including: trauma, surgical critical care, oncology, endocrine, vascular surgery and transplantation. Several individuals have additional expertise in advanced laparoscopy. Over 3,200 general surgical procedures are performed at the institution annually (58% inpatient; 42% outpatient). The service utilizes six physician assistants. In addition, St. Joseph’s has developed a surgical simulation laboratory, has an ongoing surgical/trauma research laboratory studying systemic inflammation and has dedicated itself to becoming an academic medical center to promote faculty development.
Our initial group of surgery residents began in July 2008, after Surgical RRC preliminary approval. These residents will complete the program in June 2013. We have 3 categorical positions, 2 non-designated preliminary positions, and 4 designated preliminary positions (Neurosurgery). In July 2009, we matriculated our second class of residents.
St. Joseph’s has a longstanding history in surgical education. We have had a unique opportunity to start a general surgery residency program designed - not based on service requirements - but on education needs. The surgical residency on our campus is an important step in the advancement of general surgery in Phoenix and to train general surgeons of the future.
Mission
The goal of the general surgery residency program is to cultivate successful leaders in surgery whether academics, sub specialty, rural or other private practice.
The program is patient-centered, striving to achieve the highest surgical quality by providing care that is appropriate, timely, affective and compassionate. Providing each resident with a rich education experience in a variety of clinical settings contributes to making our residents some of the best surgeons in the country.
