The Didactic Program

The didactic conferences cover the spectrum of basic, clinical, and endovascular sciences in vascular surgery. While the emphasis is generally on common problems and therapies, the conferences also include rare and unusual clinical conditions. These conferences are a vehicle to ensure the knowledge of unusual clinical conditions is imparted to the residents.

Material is arranged so that the entire body of relevant knowledge is surveyed in two years and focused on topics relevant to the ABS Certification tests in Vascular Surgery. Each year the department funds each resident to sit for the National In-training Exam of the American Board of Surgery to help prepare for the board exams.

Grand Rounds

Departmental Grand Rounds are held every Friday 7:00 a.m. -8:30 a.m. at the McGovern Medical School, 2.103 . Guest speakers are invited to give lectures on their field of expertise. Interesting clinical cases and reviews are also presented. Usually, the cases chosen for Grand Rounds are topics within the expertise of the guest speaker. Residents who are presenting cases should review the case and the presentation with faculty well in advance of the conference. It is a good practice for each resident to keep a list of any interesting patients they encounter; then when a case needs to be presented at any conference, this list will be a valuable resource.

Resident Basic & Clinical Science Curriculum

The curriculum is a series of lectures based on the Basic Science Curriculum and Clinical Curriculum as developed and adopted by the Association of Program Directors for Vascular Surgery (available online at www.vascularweb.org). This series of conference takes place in the conference room in MHMP 2850 every Thursday at 7:00 a.m. to 7:30 a.m., throughout the year. The entire course is repeated every 2 years. The purpose of this curriculum is to prepare the resident for an effective practice in vascular surgery, and to prepare the resident for the Board Examination in Vascular Surgery at the end of the training period. The topics are assigned at the beginning of the academic year. The assignment list is available from the Academic office.

Journal Club

Journal Club is conducted once every 4^th Wednesday of the month (7:00 a.m. -8:00 a.m.) in the conference room in the Memorial Hermann Medical Plaza. The purpose of Journal Club is to develop good reading habits which will keep the practicing vascular surgeon up to date in the years to come, to learn to critically evaluate journal articles, to learn the various types of studies presented in the literature, and to develop a broad base of fundamental knowledge from original journal articles. Each Resident will be assigned to review one recent Journal article and present their critique. In general, 2 articles are reviewed per session. Faculty will be present to aid in and direct the discussion. Journal club is scheduled to discuss the following systems: Venous. Lower Extremities, Dialysis, Aorta, Renal, Mesenteric, and Carotid.

Mortality and Morbidity Conferences

The topics of quality assurance and improving patient care are presented at several meetings throughout the year. Morbidity and mortality conferences are held every other week (twice monthly) on Thursday 7:30 a.m. -8:00 a.m. in the conference room at the Memorial Hermann Medical Plaza, Suite 2850.

The vascular surgery Morbidity and Mortality Conference is held biweekly. Residents maintain statistics regarding complication rates in vascular surgical procedures. Utilizing information gathered at this conference, each VS resident reviews the data regarding a clinical complication and presents to the group a proposal regarding possible changes in clinical care. The residents and faculty then discuss the complication and changes to the clinical practice. With faculty supervision, the resident designs and implements a plan to change process in order to assist in quality improvement. This plan is reviewed, approved, and monitored by the PD. All faculty and administrative support personnel from our quality improvement office are available as resources.