Surgery
Similar to many successful organizations, the Department of Surgery is significantly more than the sum of its parts, for it is the relationships and interactions among the faculty, residents, students, staff, patients, and colleagues that define the culture of the Department – a culture of excellence, compassion, diversity, inquiry, collegiality, and vision. The culture of the department is perpetuated by a continual focus on integrating and balancing educational, research, and patient care missions that is promoted by a vast network of functional ties cultivated over many years between the Department, the entire New York Medical College (NYMC), and affiliated teaching hospitals, all of which provide the very best in services and facilities.
The philosophy of the Department of Surgery at NYMC is to provide an environment attractive to the best academic surgeons, where their teaching and patient care are co-mingled with the phenomenal technological resources that have revolutionized modern surgery and reduced morbidity and mortality. The use of minimally invasive techniques has radically changed our approach to the performance of many procedures, specifically, endovascular surgery, transcatheter aortic and mitral valve replacement, as well as videoscopic and robotic abdominal and thoracic surgery to name a few.
NYMC’s major clinical affiliate Westchester Medical Center, which consistently has had the highest patient severity of illness index in the United States, provides the 3.5 million residents in the Hudson Valley with the only American College of Surgeons Level 1 Verified Trauma Center. The Department of Surgery is composed of more than a dozen divisions: General Surgery, Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, Bariatric and Minimally Invasive Surgery, Burn Surgery, Cardiothoracic and Cardiac Transplantation Surgery, Thoracic Surgery, Vascular and Endovascular Surgery, Intra-abdominal Transplantation (adult and pediatric liver and kidney), Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Pediatric Surgery, Pediatric Cardiothoracic Surgery, Colorectal Surgery, Surgical Oncology, and Integrated Wound Care.
Research
Research is an important component of the activities of the Department of Surgery and the surgical faculty has a strong record of publications in major scientific journals and numerous opportunities are available for medical students to collaborate with faculty on research projects.
Residents present research results at national surgical meetings and are expected to assume authorship or co-authorship of a publication of original work during the five-year program. Residents are encouraged to participate in NYMC research projects and many opt for elective 12-month rotations in research programs, usually after the third year. State-of-the-art facilities are available for the trainee’s use in research. These include the latest laboratory equipment and technology, an animal facility with an operating room, and advanced computer systems. The additional surgical research year may also be spent in other university research laboratories in which case residents must seek funding from the sponsoring institution.
Each year the Department of Surgery hosts the Dr. Louis R.M. Del Guercio Annual Visiting Professorship and Research Day. This annual event commemorates Dr. Del Guercio’s 25 years of distinguished leadership of the Department of Surgery and stimulates and promotes surgical research throughout New York Medical College and its affiliated institutions.
Medical Student Education
Third-year students in the Surgery Clerkship explore the basics of surgery for six weeks across regional NYMC affiliate sites in New York City, Westchester County, and Dutchess County. The clerkship includes core inpatient general surgery experience, ambulatory outpatient exposure, after-hours and weekend surgical on-call, and exposure to the surgical subspecialties. Under supervision, students play an active and reasonably independent role in the daily care of surgical patients and attend their surgical team's outpatient clinics, operative sessions, office hours, and daily patient care rounds.
Numerous electives are offered to third- and fourth-year students in a wide range of surgical subspecialties, including breast surgery, burn surgery, cardiothoracic surgery, plastic surgery, transplant surgery, and trauma and acute care surgery. An elective subinternship in surgery exposes students to the unique experience of a surgical intern, including rounding on patients daily, presenting on team rounds, and performing procedures as appropriate.
Other opportunities for NYMC students include a Surgical Interest Group that meets monthly with each meeting hosted by a different Section of the Department of Surgery in an informal setting. Discussion topics include specialty training, “a day in the life,” interesting cases, new technologies, and research opportunities. NYMC students are also invited to the Department Grand Rounds and Journal Club.
General Surgery Residency Program
The NYMC General Surgery Residency Program at NYC Health + Hospitals/Metropolitan is committed to educating its residents to provide competent, culturally sensitive, quality care to all in the community, with dignity and compassion, without exception and regardless of the ability to pay, in a respectful manner, in a humane and safe environment, and in an atmosphere of excellence, scholarship, professionalism, and inclusivity. In addition to weekly educational conferences, each participating institution, dedicates three-hour sessions of formal academic conferences for the residents. Mock ABSITE and mock orals are given over the academic year.
The General Surgery residents are exposed to a wide variety of procedures: esophagus, gastrointestinal, hepatobiliary pancreatic, colorectal, endocrine, oncologic, pulmonary, bariatric, and minimally invasive and image-guided surgeries. Surgical residents are granted graded autonomy in diagnosis and clinical decision-making, pre- and post-operative care, and supervision in the operating room, in addition to the development of their critical thinking and deductive reasoning abilities. The trainees are provided with a vigorous clinical and basic science educational and research program along with the development of their technical skills in the simulation center. The infrastructure of the Department is strong and the financial base is stable with educational programs that are thriving, research programs that are expanding, and faculty development meetings with progressively increasing success.
Learn more about the NYMC General Surgery Residency Program.
Meet the Team
Department of Surgery
New York Medical College
Skyline 1S-B60
(914) 594-2052
Steven Lansman, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor and Chair of the Department of Surgery
Director of Surgery, Westchester Medical Center Health Network
(914) 594-2050 - NYMC
(914) 493-8790 - WMC
Kartik Prabhakaran, M.D., MHS, FACS
Vice Chair of Research
Clinical Associate Professor of Surgery
(914) 493-6826
Hiroshi Sogawa, M.D., FACS
Vice Chair of Education
Professor of Surgery
Clerkship Director, Undergraduate Surgical Education
(914) 594-2055
Jordan Kirsch, M.D., FACS
Vice Chair of Quality
Clinical Assistant Professor of Surgery
(914) 493-8874
Rachelle Lodescar, M.D.
Vice Chair of Diversity
Assistant Professor of Surgery
(914) 493-3629
Deanna Cherry
Clerkship Education Coordinator
(914) 594-2055
dcherry2@nymc.edu
Gloria Gjelaj
Administrator, Department of Surgery
(914) 594-2052
ggjelaj@nymc.edu
