General Surgery Residency

With superior skills and a compassionate, patient-centered approach to care, our surgeons are up to date in the latest and most innovative procedures, focused on quality, safety and using the least invasive approach to achieve the best possible outcome for each patient.

High-level, basic science research opportunities are abundant in all of the sections of the Department of Surgery through the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, the Fralin Biomedical Research Center at VTC and Virginia Tech. These include investigations in neurobiology, obesity, breast oncology and genetic markers associated with tumors and scar tissue.

Using several comprehensive databases, studies are conducted that focus on quality of patient care and improving outcomes after surgical intervention, trauma and critical care. Surgery faculty also use Carilion’s Center for Simulation, Research and Patient Safety (Sim Lab) to optimize physician training, investigate human factors in the operating room and develop advanced techniques involving minimally invasive procedures and robotics.

All surgery residents are required to complete at least one quality improvement project or research study before graduating from the program. Many in fact choose to participate in multiple studies over the duration of the residency. To facilitate this process, all residents have a research mentor who assists with study design, project implementation, data analysis and manuscript preparation. By the conclusion of the program, all residents should feel comfortable with research methodology and be able to serve as a principal investigator in future studies.

Our residents present findings at internal Carilion Clinic functions, such as the annual Carilion Clinic Research Day and the Carilion Clinic Surgery Resident Research Day. Many current residents have also presented at the following state and national meetings, including:

• Academic Surgical Congress
• ACS-NSQIP National Conference
• American College of Surgeons (ACS) Virginia Committee on Trauma
• Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma and Clinical Congress of Acute Care surgery
• Association of Program Directors in Surgery (APDS) Annual Meeting
• Central Surgical Association
• Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES)
• Southeastern Surgical Congress (SESC) Annual Scientific Meeting
• Virginia Surgical Society

A method by which the residents may begin to fulfill this requirement is through the Introduction to Research rotation during their intern PGY1 year. During this intern year rotation, the resident will be introduced to the practical aspects of designing and conducting research which will result in a paper and/or a presentation at a regional or national level.

Our faculty and residents are interested in and participate in a variety of research options, as shown below. The following are a few of the recent projects which our faculty and residents have worked on; most of our resident-driven research is completed through collaborative efforts between both faculty and residents.

Recent Faculty and Resident Research

Some recent faculty and resident research is listed below. More can be provided upon request.

• Madaliene Denison (PGY 5), Kyrillos Awad, Jacob Gillen, Michael Nussbaum, Bryan Collier: Issues and Strategies in Training Left-Handed Surgeons
• Carl Buchholz (PGY 5): Revised Intensity Battle Score (RIBS): Development of a Clinical Score for Predicting Poor Outcomes After Rib Fractures
• Britany Thompson (Graduate), Kendra Colbert (PGY 3), Michael Nussbaum, Charles Paget: Practical Strategies for Underrepresented Minority Recruitment in General Surgery Residency
• Rebecca Gates (PGY 3), Daniel Lollar, Bryan Collier, Jacob Smith, Emily Faulks, Jacob Gillen: Enoxaparin titrated by anti-Xa levels reduces venous thromboembolism in trauma patients 

Ongoing research: 

• Ben Scarboro (PGY 4), Daniel Lollar, Charles Paget: Retrospective trends in the management of choledocolithiasis. Trauma Simulation Human Factors
• Jin Cai (PGY 3), Farrell Adkins: A retrospective review of complications with late (>1 year) ileostomy reversal
• Ebun Ajadi (PGY 3), Daniel Tershak: Risk factors and associated operative complications following thyroidectomy: A single center experience