Training

The podiatric surgical training takes place at the Swedish First Hill Campus with the core faculty surgeons.

The general medical and surgical rotations provided for the educational advancement of the Northwest Podiatric Surgical Residents have been developed after many years of close affiliation with the University of Washington and surrounding major hospitals. Today, the Podiatric Residency Training Committee creates a diverse educational base for the podiatric residents to become knowledgeable physicians capable of recognizing and diagnosing a broad range of medical conditions and treating a multitude of lower extremity pathologies.

In the second year, many of the rotations are performed at Harborview Medical Center.   They include general surgery, emergency room trauma, and orthopedic surgery. Harborview Medical Center, part of the University of Washington Hospital System, is a large, public community hospital classified as the regional "level one trauma center" in the Northwest. During the rotations,  podiatric residents assume the role of first-year medical residents and are responsible for their own patients in-house or in the emergency room.

Other rotations, such as sports medicine, are completed at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle. The Virginia Mason Sports Medicine Clinic has become the leading institution in the area for the treatment of sports medicine injuries and biomechanics. The residents work closely in the operating room and clinics with the Virginia Mason podiatric physicians for a broad exposure to the surgical and conservative management of sports medicine conditions.

In the third year, residents devote much of their education to the refinement of their knowledge and skills in foot and ankle reconstruction and trauma surgery. A large part of their time is spent with Sigvard T. Hansen, MD, at Harborview Medical Center and Jack Schuberth, DPM, at Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco, California. The renowned Northwest Podiatric Foundation Surgical Biomechanics Research Laboratory, directed by Dr. Jeffrey Christensen, focuses primarily on prospective studies of foot and ankle mechanics. The laboratory is housed on the Cherry Hill campus, and is funded by both the Northwest Podiatric Foundation for Education and Research, USA, and applied grants.

The laboratory has received significant acclaim over the years with the publication of numerous award-winning papers. During their three years of training, residents are responsible for publishing two research projects and are often selected to present at the annual meeting of the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons.

Since its inception in 1998, the Wound Center at Swedish Medical Center, Cherry Hill Campus has become a strong entity receiving referrals of complex patient cases from the greater Seattle area and beyond. This clinic functions as a multi-specialty setting for the treatment of chronic wounds. The residents are an integral part of the medical staff involved with the management of these patients along with the vascular surgeons, orthopedic surgeons, plastic surgeons, endocrinologists, and podiatric surgeons.