Course Description for Externships/Sub-Internship/Clerkship in General Surgery

Course Goals
The Goal of the Externship opportunities in the Swedish Medical Center/First Hill is the provision of a quality experience in surgical education and training within a private hospital setting, emphasizing a close collegial relationship between Teaching Attending Surgeons, Residents, and Fourth Year Medical Students who are considering general surgery as a career.

Supervisory Lines of Responsibility
The Swedish Surgery Residency Program rotations are organized to maximize communication and education between attending surgeon and residents and medical students. The student is individually assigned to work closely with four to six surgical attendings emphasizing close and ongoing contact and communication between the students and the surgical attending concerning all aspects of patient care in the preoperative, interoperative and post operative setting.

All students will work one on one with a senior and/or chief surgery resident at all times, thus maximizing their opportunity to experience resident life, responsibility, and expectations at every level of training. This tutorial relationship with both teaching attending staff and senior residents allows ample opportunity for ongoing evaluation of the student's experience, fund of knowledge, etc. and the opportunity for instantaneous feedback, response to questions, and encouragement.

The closeness of the relationship with both residents and teaching attendings, creates clear lines of supervision at all times for the student. Attending physicians are readily available to the residents and students at all times via the attending surgeon's office, pager, and answering service.

Externship Application Requirements
Students must submit either an on-line application or a written application to the program. The Program Director and the Surgery Residency Advisory Committee review all applications and offer the externship opportunities to qualified applicants on a first-come-first-served basis. Applicants must have a strong interest in General Surgery or one of the surgical sub-specialties. They must have had at least two previous surgical clerkship experiences e.g. OB/GYN, Emergency, Vascular Surgery, Cardiac Surgery, etc.

Students will be accepted for four-week rotations only. Once a student has been notified that their application has been approved, a letter from the Dean's office of their medical school stating the student's status, plus a verification of liability insurance coverage of a least $1,000,000.00 per occurrence must be provided to secure the dates for the student.

Students must have personal health insurance for their rotation. Students should have their immunizations up to date prior to starting an intensive patient care/surgical experience. They are responsible for their own housing and transportation. The program will provide parking, pagers, ID Badges, and meal cards for all students. Student are required to wear a clean white lab coat while in the medical center, our program can provide a coat if a student does not have one.

General Description
When students arrive for their externship, they will initially meet with the program coordinator for a brief orientation. Each student will receive a pager, an ID Badge, meal cards, keys, and parking pass if they need it. Students will be taken on a tour of the medical center and oriented to hospital policies and procedures.

Students should plan on participating in the preoperative, intraoperative, and post operative care of at least 10 surgical cases per week. Students will be assigned to a particular group of general surgeons, usually the program director's group where they will have the opportunity to work one on one with these general surgeons. Students are welcome to participate in as many surgical cases as they wish and they are welcome to participate in cases with any of the surgical teaching staff.

Students are expected to attend all didactic conferences while they are here, fitting into the residency life from their first day. Students will take call with their senior resident about 4 times during the month. Students will be invited to participate in all social events that occur during their month as our guests.

Back