Residency Goals & Expectations and Rotation Instructions

Overview of Educational Goals and Expectations for the Vanderbilt Residency in Orthopaedic Surgery:

Description  

Orthopaedic residents will rotate on eleven different clinical services during their four year program (PGY-2 to PGY-5). 

These include rotations at VUMC (follow the links to learn more):

Other rotations include:

Resident role and expectations

The resident will be an integral member of the care team, assisting in clinical patient evaluation and surgical management under the direct supervision and guidance of the attending staff.   A system of graduated responsibility is implemented, in which the responsibilities and autonomy of the resident increases with each year.  By the chief (PGY-5) year, the resident is expected to be functioning at the level of a junior attending, but still with direct supervision and guidance of attending staff.

Goal and Objectives

By the end of the orthopaedic residency program, the resident will demonstrate the medical knowledge and patient care skills necessary to function as an orthopaedic surgeon.  Instruction regarding professionalism and communication skills will be instilled in each resident from the attending staff.  The residents will demonstrate understanding of how to work effectively in various health care delivery settings, and will demonstrate self-improvement through critique of their performance from the attending staff.

Instructional Methods

  • clinical teaching rounds
  • service- specific conferences
  • operating room supervision
  • orthopaedic grand rounds
  • structured case discussions
  • morbidity and mortality conference
  • orthopaedic-in-training exam and review
  • anatomy dissection during summer anatomy course

Assessment Methods

  1. Feedback will be given by the attending staff through daily evaluation in both the operating room and clinic setting.
  2. The resident will collect cases for morbidity and mortality conference 2-3 times during their rotation, and present the cases to the entire faculty in order to improve patient management and outcomes in the future.
  3. End of rotation faculty evaluations using the Global Assessment Form bases on the six core competencies will be reviewed with each resident by the program director.
  4. 360 degree evaluations will be performed by both patients and nursing staff.  These evaluations will be reviewed with the resident semi-annually by the program director.