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Send to a FriendThe Department of Surgery has had a long commitment to surgical education as it relates to transmitting knowledge and information to residents and students about surgical diseases and their treatment. In a more recent era, we have taken on an additional commitment to train others on how to teach this information. The success of this additional layer of commitment is illustrated by the fact that our department was selected from all of the teaching departments at the University of Virginia as the best teaching department by this year’s graduating class. One of our chief residents was selected as the best resident teacher in the medical center, and one of our faculty members was selected by the students to give the baccalaureate address for this year’s graduating class. The surgical residents involved in our NIH-funded Training Program will have easy access to these resources in the department, and are encouraged to continue to develop their experience in and their skill for teaching. We believe that this environment is an ideal environment to bring along surgical investigators. We believe that this commitment to education will mesh well with the training they will receive in research.
The Division of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery takes a keen interest in educating residents and research fellows. Dr. Irving L. Kron is Chair of the Department of Surgery and Chief of the Division of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. Dr. Kron, with the help of Victor Laubach, PhD, a principal investigator in our lab, contributes much time in the training of Residents in such matters as cell & molecular biology protocols, formation of hypotheses, experimental design, data interpretation, and writing of manuscripts and grants. To learn more about the training and education which occurs in our lab visit http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/tcv-lab/picteaching.cfm
The primary focus of training is on the lab experience, but this is strongly supplemented and put into perspective by an array of courses, conferences and tutorials. Along with the education provided by the faculty in the Division of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, a structured schedule of classes is provided to further enhance the education of our research fellows and includes Molecular and Cellular Biology, Statistical Thinking in Biomedical Research, Research Ethics, and Vascular Biology. In brief, the objective of this requirement is to establish a forum for distribution of information on the ethical and moral problems encountered in biomedical research and a setting in which these issues will be discussed in an open and enlightened manner.
The goal of this program is to not only educate surgical residents in the fundamentals of surgical research, but to also help establish them as educators, completing the academic triad of clinician, researcher, and teacher. Research performed by our fellows is presented at all regional and national meetings, helping to establish them as effective communicators and educators. Similarly, publications are written and lead authorship is retained by the research fellow who performs the research work.