General Objectives:

To facilitate the training of competent, confident, and compassionate general surgeons capable of meeting the contemporary surgical needs of communities both small and large and who are ready to practice upon successful completion of our training program.

• From the Royal College point of view at the end of 5-years has met the goals & objectives of a defined specialty training program
• Residents are ready to assume the position of a consultant general surgeon
• Residents are clinically competent with: 
  • excellent technical competence
  • excellent judgment
  • a thorough knowledge of related disciplines, including basic general surgery, clinical research and methodology
  • superior managerial, professional, communication and health advocacy skills
• For those with academic interests:
  • have obtained a higher research degree, such as an MSc or PhD, in order to develop research interest, ability and training
  • have teaching interest, ability and training

Scholar

• To provide access to opportunities, and to provide adequate support, for trainees to conduct meaningful, supervised clinical research relevant to the practice of General Surgery.
• To provide an environment that stimulates both residents and faculty to engage in ongoing review of best practice guidelines and new modalities, approaches and techniques to the management of general surgical diseases.
• To provide support for completion of concurrent professional needs if desired as a career objective by the surgical trainee.
• To maintain a sense of concerted interest in the comprehensive education of trainees, to foster a desire for our trainees to continue to contribute to the education of others.
• To collaboratively create an interdisciplinary environment conducive to the conduct of scholarly activities.
• To foster the desire to perform ongoing quality assurance and quality improvement initiatives.

Collaborator

• To provide our trainees access to, and education in, the multidisciplinary management of all general surgical disease entities, and to encourage our trainees to become leaders in the realm of collaborative medicine.
• To encourage our surgical trainees to engage the opinions and assistance of all appropriate health care professionals to optimize the care of the General Surgical patient.
• To provide an environment and curriculum which emphasizes a general surgeon’s role as an integral part of any hospital, and to highlight the importance of professional collaboration with other disciplines for optimal patient care.

Communicator

• To routinely encourage and nurture the concept of an excellent surgeon being one that is capable of professional, compassionate, informative and collaborative discussion with patients, families, health care professionals and colleagues.
• To create an environment in which faculty and residents feel free to discuss each other’s strengths, weaknesses, and concerns without hesitation or malice, and to create a community in which communication between all members of our program occurs free of intimidation.
• To educate our trainees to be able to present their opinions and information in an informative, succinct, and relevant fashion.

Professional

• To emphasize the importance of conducting one’s medical practice with respect for others at all times.
• To create an environment that will allow our trainees to become role models in the field of General Surgery, specifically in regards to excellence in clinical care, respect for other professionals, sensitivity to the needs of patients and their families, and awareness of the pitfalls and stressors which can afflict a busy general surgeon.
• To help educate senior residents on the best methods and important points of establishing a surgical practice in a variety of settings.
• To help our surgical trainees to realize their own limitations, and to acknowledge when they need assistance.

Health Advocate

• To create a curriculum that will allow our trainees to understand the unique health and medical needs of the population, and to tailor their practice of surgery to help meet these needs, while still ensuring a broad knowledge base to allow subsequent practice anywhere in Canada or the United States.
• To ensure our residents have excellent exposure to best practice guidelines and current formative scholarly activity to allow them to make informed and collaborative medical decisions for their patients.
• To create an environment in which both faculty and residents feel free to express concern regarding another’s wellness.
• To nurture confidence in our trainees to allow them to elicit assistance of other disciplines in accordance with what is deemed in the best interest of general surgical patients.
• To enhance exposure of best practice guidelines to help drive appropriate medical decisions in the best interest of the general surgical patient.

Medical Expert

• To help educate our trainees to become competent and independent general surgeons upon the successful completion of training program.
• To create a curriculum which will allow our trainees to be either ready to begin independent practice or compete for surgical fellowships upon the completion of the residency program.
• To train technically-proficient surgeons in both open and minimally-invasive surgery.
• To establish and maintain a program which comprehensively covers the anatomy, physiology, pathology, preoperative optimization, operative approaches, and post-operative care of patients with general surgical diseases across the categories outlined by the Objectives of Training set forth by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.
• To maintain an environment which will allow our trainees to fulfill these Objectives of Training, and demonstrate competence in these objectives both during their residency as well as in subsequent independent practice.

Manager/Leader

• To foster an awareness of contemporary limitations to health care resources and their appropriate and evidenced-based allocation to patients in need.
• To help residents prioritize their clinical tasks to allow efficient use of time in hospital.
• To foster an environment which helps trainees achieve an appropriate balance between work and personal life.
• To incorporate leadership training within the academic

Service Goals & Objectives

Clinical & Service Expectations

• Assist in Pre-operative assessment patients utilizing history/physical, lab, etc.
• Review cases with attending surgeons
• Attend and assist and perform operative interventions
• Attend to post-operative care. Continuity of care in post-op patient management is crucial
• Operative reports  should be dictated with 24-hour
• Morning rounds should be started at an appropriate time, rounds should be completed before the commencement of ORs, clinics, etc. During morning rounds the problem list for each patient should be reviewed and updated and investigations for the day should be decided upon and assigned to members of the team to organize
• Rounds on patients prior to at end of shift and sign over to the next shift
• Brief notes should be written each day on each active patient on the service
• Progress notes should be written on each assessment and especially when there has been a change in status
• You will be expected to consult on patients in the Emergency Department with various surgical problems
• All requests for consultations are to be accommodated in a timely fashion. If you cannot attend to this duty you must inform your staff person and/or your chief resident. You must let your chief resident