Letter of Introduction

Scott A. Dulchavsky, MD Ph.D.
Chairman, Department of Surgery

Thank you for your interest in surgical residency training at Henry Ford Hospital. The training environment at Henry Ford capitalizes on a large clinical volume, excellent faculty, and broad research capabilities to provide exceptional training opportunities in General Surgery. Many of our residents choose to pursue fellowship training; we have placed numerous graduates in prestigious fellowships throughout the country.

Henry Ford is one of the nation’s leading comprehensive health systems, providing primary and speciality care services. The system is anchored by Henry Ford Hospital, a 903-bed tertiary care hospital in Detroit’s New Center Area. Henry Ford Hospital, an American College of Surgeons designated Level 1 trauma center, has a large multi-disciplinary trauma program with over 1500 admissions per year, that receives a higher percentage of penetrating injuries than the national average. The campus also houses extensive education and research facilities where more than 1,500 research projects are under way.

U.S. News & World Report ranks Henry Ford Hospital as one of the best hospitals in America and ranks 10 of its specialties as among the best in the nation. The health system records more than 2.5 million patient visits annually at the main hospital, three other Henry Ford-owned hospitals, and at 23 Henry Ford medical centers. The broad reach and coverage of the health system provides a large and varied case load to Henry Ford Hospital for surgical residency training.

The Henry Ford Department of Surgery has long been a leader in education, research, and clinical care. Henry Ford Hospital surgeons pioneered open heart surgery, vascular surgery, oxygen therapy, and transplantation. More recently, the Department of Surgery has partnered with NASA to conduct medical research on the International Space Station. We are the only program in the world which is developing advanced ultrasound and laparoscopic techniques for the space program; the technologic and training advances pioneered for use in space allow streamlined resident education in a constrained, 80 hour work week.

Clinical care
The department of surgery at Henry Ford Hospital has a huge, varied clinical volume for resident education. Residents in our program finish with an excellent experience in trauma, critical care, plastics, vascular, colo-rectal surgery, oncology, cardiothoracic, and transplant surgery. Our residents exceed national standards in all aspects of surgical case volumes; we have ranked in the top 5% in endocrine surgery and complex surgical cases for the previous 5 years.

Residency Training
The Henry Ford Hospital surgical residency is fully accredited by the ACGME and finishes 6 senior residents per year. Our trainees are well equipped to handle the rigors of a surgical practice and have matched across the country in competitive fellowships including critical care, cardiac, vascular, and plastic surgery. Henry Ford Hospital is a primary rotation site for 3rd and 4th year medical students from Wayne State University, the largest medical school in the country. Medical student education is an important component of the surgical residency.

The residents attend numerous educational sessions which are tailored to their level of training. Didactic, CD-ROM, and computer based instruction augments the surgical residency education curriculum. Work week hours are logged on a web based program to allow real-time monitoring of service workloads. Advanced practice nurses and physician assistants were hired by the department to respond to increased patient volumes and 80 hour work week mandates; these valuable team members provide additional continuity of care while off loading non-educational activities from the surgical residents.

A 12,500 sq. ft. surgical education and simulation center has recently been established in the department which is furnished with state of the art procedural simulators to complement hands on training in endoscopic, laparoscopic and vascular skills. Henry Ford Hospital is also a research partner with Ethicon Surgical Instruments which allows our residents to participate in large animal laboratories to field test new technologies before they come to market.

Research and Training Environment:
Henry Ford Hospital is truly an academic environment. There are more than 80 full-time senior staff scientists who receive more than $38 million a year in extramural grant funding. Studies sponsored by pharmaceutical companies total about $7 million per year.

The research laboratories are housed in two research buildings (Benson Ford Education and Research Building and One Ford Place) in more than 156,000-sq. ft. of research space. In addition to external grants, dedicated support for research comes from a large ($150 million) endowment.

The optional surgical resident research program of the department ranges from molecular biology to diagnostic and therapy of injured patients. The Director of Surgical Research, Subhash Gautam Ph.D, is a nationally recognized Immunologist with special interests in stem cell research related to ischemia-reperfusion injury, wound healing, and tissue regeneration. He has a joint appointment with the Wayne State University School of Medicine, our academic partner, which facilitates collaboration with other research investigators. Residents may choose to complete clinical research investigations with a number of our clinical faculty in a wide variety of topics. More in-depth, dedicated year long research opportunities exist after after the PGY-2 or 3 levels in a variety of funded research laboratories.

The department of surgery at Henry Ford Hospital is unique in conducting funded medical research on the International Space Station. Residents in our department help validate training methods used to teach the astronauts advanced medical skills to use on a mission to Mars. Advanced NASA technologies from these research efforts truly provide space age training for our residents.

The choice of a surgical residency training program is an important decision. The optimal training program for a surgeon combines an excellent clinical volume, exceptional faculty, high quality educational activities, and research opportunities to provide a graded, comprehensive training environment. The residency program must also be the right fit for the trainees to complement their unique skills and requirements. The Department of Surgery at Henry Ford Hospital has the “Right Stuff” for surgical resident training; we look forward to providing additional information through our website, brochure, and the interview process.

Best of Luck in your career plans;

Scott A. Dulchavsky MD PH.D.

Professor of Surgery, Molecular Biology, and Genetics
Wayne State University School of Medicine
Roy D. McClure Chair of Surgery
Henry Ford Health System
Lead Scientist
NASA Johnson Space Center
Advanced Diagnostic Ultrasound in Microgravity