General Surgery Residency Program

The General Surgery residency program at FAU is a fully ACGME accredited, non-pyramidal program approved to train 7 categorical residents per year, and 5 preliminary residents per year, for PGY I and II. The program is structured into five clinical years and one unique value-added year of scholarship that is usually completed after the third clinical year. During the value-added year, under the guidance of the Program Director and faculty mentors, each resident can choose to complete research projects or additional qualifications aimed at enhancing his/her capabilities to successfully pursue the career of choice.

Knowledge, skills and leadership are the most powerful tools we possess as physicians and surgeons, and the FAU Program in General Surgery strives to foster an environment of learning and scholarship, which will enable our graduates to develop excellent patient management skills, technical and procedural skills, as well as the ability to critically appraise the literature and keep abreast of surgical and technological advances years after graduating from the program. Our residents will develop the ability to understand how to teach, learn and work together efficiently across multi-specialty and multi-professional care delivery-systems in today’s complex health care environment.

Clinical Postgraduate Years 1 to 2

The first two clinical years of residency training are focused on the development of foundational skills and experiences in general surgery and its subspecialties. Residents spend time in General Surgery at our core hospitals, and on rotations in Trauma and Pediatric Surgery, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery,  Breast, and Vascular Surgery, as well as Burn and Transplantation Surgery. While both years place an emphasis on early operative exposure and development of procedural skills, rotations in the second year also focus on developing of the resident’s consultation and critical care management skills.

Clinical Postgraduate Years 3 to 5

The educational experiences in the senior years are designed to deepen the understanding and skills in all areas of General Surgery and Surgical Oncology, in addition to comprehensive exposure in Endoscopy, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Vascular, Pediatric, and Trauma and Acute Care Surgery.

In addition to the scheduled rotations, the resident will be given the opportunity to further engage in an area of his/her interest in the PGY IV elective rotation.

The Value-Added Year of Scholarship

To train surgeons to meet the needs and challenges of an ever changing healthcare environment, we have incorporated a unique value-added year of post-graduate training into our program design. The residents will usually complete this year after their third clinical year of training; during that year the residents may choose to complete research with a highly recognized and productive mentor in their field of interest, an in-residency trauma/critical care fellowship or potentially a one-year executive master degree program related to the business of medicine, public health and health sciences or medical informatics, thereby graduating from our program with substantial added qualifications.

For further information about our program, please feel free to browse the remainder of our website.

We wish you the best of luck as you embark on your surgical career.

Apply to General Surgery Residency Program

Application Requirements

• Up-to-date CV [ERAS format]
• Complete ERAS common application
• Personal Statement
• 3-4 [preferred] letters of recommendation
• Dean's letter and Medical Student Performance Evaluation
• Transcripts
• USMLE/COMLEX step I and II [preferred, step II must be passed prior to rank list submission]

The ideal candidate for our program:

• will have a genuine desire to pursue training and a career in surgery, and a commitment to life-long learning and scholarship.
• has medical school performance evaluations that put him/her in the top 1/3 of the class, and USMLE scores at or above the national average for successfully matched candidates
• has demonstrated prior involvement in research and scholarship that has led to successful presentation or publication of his/her results.

The program currently will accept applications form qualified Osteopathic and International Medical Graduates, all candidates should have completed the USMLE/COMLEX step examinations. International medical graduates must have completed medical school without gaps and within the last two years, and ideally already have prior US experience.

The Interview Process

On the day of the interview, candidates will be given an overview of the program structure and goals, and will meet with the Program Coordinator, the Program Director, Core Faculty and some of our current residents. Our interviews remain virtual. 

Contact General Surgery Residency Program

Please contact our staff for more information about the FAU General Surgery Residency or General Surgery Resident rotations.