IMMC General Surgery Advanced Elective

Rotation Overview

During the course of the General Surgery Service rotation, the medical student is allowed to function as a senior level medical student. Each senior student will be assigned a General Surgery Service consisting of three to four general surgeons and one or two residents during his/her/their rotation. 

On the General Surgery Service the student is expected to participate in the preoperative evaluation including diagnostic workup of patients with a myriad of general and vascular surgical diseases. The student will be exposed to invasive and non-invasive diagnostic maneuvers for many general surgical diseases including oncologic, GI and endocrine diseases, and will participate in the management of the intra-operative and post-operative care of these patients. The student is responsible for assisting the surgical team and will be allowed to participate in operations. The student will have the opportunity to demonstrate manual dexterity skills, overall comprehensive knowledge of disease states, and pathophysiologic alterations caused by surgery and surgical diseases. 

The student may assist in the management of the post-operative care of patients and write daily progress notes, as well as write appropriate physician orders which are to be countersigned by a resident and/or faculty physician. The medical student will participate actively in the ambulatory setting following-up with patients who have been operated on, as well as seeing new patients referred to the surgical service for evaluations. The student will have exposure to evaluation of not only abdominal and thoracic CT scans and ultrasounds, but also invasive angiography, and participation in patient care during these procedures. Overall, the student will be exposed to a wide variety of general surgical, vascular and traumatically induced disease states.

Additional information about this advanced elective can be found in the Carver College of Medicine Advanced Pathway Course Descriptions under SURG:8406.

Objectives

1. Be responsible for diagnosis and management of patients  on an inpatient service. 

2. Learn how to care for general surgery patients in a private hospital setting with a constant flow of excellent surgical material for study. 

3. Take an active part in all of the scheduled surgery conferences. 

Resources

1. Sabiston Textbook for Surgery 19th edition; Text book or Articles will be provided

2. IMMC Health Sciences Library: Students have 24-hour access, 7 days per week to the library. A student picture UPH-DM ID is needed for after-hours entry. Internet and photocopying are available. Students may also call the Health Sciences librarians for assistance at 515-241-6490.

Conferences

1. All Didactic Conferences (Wednesday at 5:00 PM).

2. Trauma Video Conference (Tuesday at 4:00 PM)

3. Grand Rounds Conference (Thursday 8:00 AM weekly)

4. Surgical Teaching Rounds (TBA basis)

Evaluations and Grading

1. Faculty may request the student to do a case presentation.

2. Faculty and Surgery Residents complete evaluations of students.

3. Program Director reviews and compiles all of the evaluations and returns the evaluations to Iowa City.

4. Students may also receive mid-clerkship feedback and/or an evaluation to complete of the rotation and/or of the faculty member(s) with whom they worked.

5. Final grading is determined based on overall performance and ensuring all requirements of the advanced elective are met.

Contact Information

For further information about this rotation, please contact Wendi Kruger, at wendi.kruger@unitypoint.org or in the Consortium office at 515-241-4455.

Office of Student Affairs and Curriculum (OSAC) - Advanced Curriculum Resources