Career Development: Medical Specialties: General Surgery

A surgeon manages a broad spectrum of surgical conditions affecting almost any area of the body. The surgeon establishes the diagnosis and provides the preoperative, operative, and postoperative care to surgical patients and is usually responsible for the comprehensive management of the trauma victim and the critically ill surgical patient.

Residency training information:

• Duration of training (number of years): 5 clinical years (can be 5-7 yrs depending on time spent on doing research)
• Number of programs nationally: 257 programs
• Number of entering residency positions per year: 1,040
• Types of fellowships or subspecialties:Thoracic, Vascular, Transplant, Trauma, Colorectal,
  Pediatric Surgery, Critical Care, Oncology (all require general surgery training prior to beginning
  fellowships)
• Type of Match: Regular
• Overall competitiveness: Varies with the type of residency

Primary faculty contact person for M1 and M2 students:

• Michael G. Franz, MD. mfranz@umich.edu
  Phone: 734-936-5792
• Mark Orringer, M.D. morrin@umich.edu
  Phone: 734-936-4975

Medical Student Club or Interest Group:

• Surgical Forum
  Contact: Janice Davis janiced@umich.edu

Shadowing or mentoring experiences available to M1 or M2 students:

• A list of Surgery faculty who are willing to mentor M1, M2 students or have them shadow them is available through the M1-M2 website on the UM Department of Surgery homepage.
  http://www.um-surgery.org/education/mse/index.shtml

Resources:

• American College of Surgeons www.facs.org

Suggested journals, books, or other information for interested students:

• “So You Want To Be A Surgeon”
• “Complications in Surgery 2005”
• “Surgery: Scientific Principles and Practice, 2005”