General Responsibilities

The residents in the program direct the preoperative and postoperative care of all service and consult patients under the supervision of the Thoracic Surgery Faculty.  Residents are responsible for rounding all patients in both hospitals daily and recording progress notes daily and with each procedure.  Cases for surgery must be posted the day prior to surgery to reserve operative time.  All operative dictations must be dictated within 24 hours.  All patients should predischarged by 10:00am the day prior to anticipated discharge.  All discharge summaries must be dictated by the day of discharge from hospital.  History and Physical Examinations, Preoperative Notes and Operative Consents must be completed prior to surgery on all patients except in extreme emergencies.  Residents are responsible for completing Operative Summary forms on all cases done at any hospital and submitting them to  the department office by Friday of the week of surgery.  These forms generate the M&M report sheets.  Residents should be physically in the operating room by 7:15am all weekdays except Wednesday (8:30am) and appropriate X-rays should be displayed in the operating room.

Residents must attend all assigned clinics for the specific rotation and attend all scheduled teaching conferences.  Thoracic Surgery residents provide instruction in thoracic surgery and critical care to rotating General Surgery residents on the service.  Residents are encouraged to participate in clinical research projects during their rotations.

The call schedule is prepared by the chief resident and must be turned in to the department's surgery scheduler by the 15th of the preceding month.

Residents should see all consults on the day of consultation and discuss with appropriate faculty on the same day.  Faculty should be informed of any significant changes in status of any of their patients immediately.  Communication between residents and faculty is the key to success in this program.  

Parkland Memorial Hospital/Zale Lipshy University Hospital

This service is operated as a single service across two institutions.  All cardiac cases originating from either hospital undergo surgery at St Paul University Hospital under an institutional sharing agreement.  Therefore careful coordination of patient transfers is essential.  All non-cardiac cases from Parkland are performed at Parkland hospital.  

The service is staffed by one Thoracic Surgery Resident who functions as the Chief resident on the service, and one first year General Surgery Resident.

Thoracic trauma is handled by this service, although most cases are initially assessed by the General Surgery Trauma team.  The primary resident responsible for trauma is the first year resident on the Parkland/Zale service.  Coverage at night and on weekends is handled by the first year resident or the Thoracic Surgery resident on the service.

All residents must attend Thoracic Surgery Clinic each Friday at Parkland 2nd floor starting at 8:30am.  Residents should also attend the Suspected Bronchogenic Carcinoma Clinic each Wednesday at Parkland 4th floor starting at 1:00pm.

Children's Medical Center Dallas

This service provides training in congenital heat surgery through a high-volume single-institution service.  Residents participate in the care of children under the supervision of three surgeons (Drs. Ring, Nikaidoh, and Leonard).  There are no junior residents on this service but night call is taken by Fellows in Pediatric Intensive Care.  There is no specific clinic assignment but a conference list is included later in this document.

Dallas Veteran's Affairs Medical Center

This service is located physically separate from the other component institutions and residents must be aware that attending staff, anesthesia team members and perfusionists may require 30-60 minutes to arrive on-site.  Therefore careful coordination of operative schedule changes is essential.

The service is staffed by one Thoracic Surgery Resident who functions as the Chief resident on the service, one fourth year General Surgery resident, and one second year General Surgery Resident.

All residents must attend Thoracic Surgery Clinic each Friday at Clinic 7, 3rd floor of the new clinic addition, starting at 9:00am.

St. Paul University Hospital

This service is staffed by one or two Thoracic Surgery Residents (one of whom functions as the Chief resident on the service) and one first year General Surgery Resident.  The service performs a high volume of adult cardiac surgery and performs all cases in the heart and lung transplantation program  Residents may also be involved in heart and lung procurements for transplantation at outside (donor) hospitals, and may be involved with heart and lung transplant procedures at Baylor University Medical Center.  As well, there are sometimes opportunities to work with private surgeons at St Paul on general thoracic cases.  There is no specific clinic assignment on this rotation.