About
About the Department
The Wayne State University School of Medicine’s Department of Surgery has a long and proud history of service, education, and research. The Department is comprised of sections in general surgery, surgical oncology, trauma, cardiothoracic, plastic, transplantation, pediatric, vascular, and minimally invasive surgery. The Department is home to more than 70 residents and fellows, taught by 47 full-time faculty and more than 90 clinical faculty. In addition, the surgical education of the 1,200 students in the Wayne State University School of Medicine is the Department’s responsibility.
The Department’s strengths and reputation rest on its tripartite base of clinical, education and research foci. Although outstanding clinical surgeons are its trademark, the research and education missions are equally outstanding. Did you know that the vast majority of Michigan surgeons trained here? And that it was our surgeons, in collaboration with engineers from General Motors, who researched and developed the world’s first successful heart pump?
With well over 10,000 feet of lab space, large and small animal labs, and access to state-of-the-art engineering facilities from atomic force microscopes to a Class 10/100 Clean Room in the Smart Sensors and Integrated Microsystems (SSIM) Lab at the College of Engineering, our faculty and residents have unparalleled access to world-class medical/surgical/microbiological research facilities and equipment, all within a single campus.
Clinical Environment
The Department of Surgery of the Wayne State University School of Medicine (WSUSOM) operates primarily on the attractive and efficient Detroit Medical Center (DMC) campus in mid-town Detroit. The DMC is a 2,000-bed, 9-hospital system of which five are located on the central campus.The DMC mainly serves a the metropolitan Detroit area population of some four million people and is a major referral center for southeastern Michigan.
- The 650-bed Harper University Hospital is an adult hospital with an international reputation for tertiary care and is the main clinical facility for the Karmanos Cancer Institute.
- Detroit Receiving Hospital is an American College of Surgeons designated Level I Trauma Center (the first to be so designated in Michigan) and is a major hospital for emergency surgery.
- The modern, 503-bed John D. Dingell VA Medical Center, with 45 research laboratories, is adjacent to the WSUSOM/DMC campus.
- All pediatric care occurs at the 260-bed Children’s Hospital of Michigan, which is one of the principle pediatric institutions in the Midwest.
- The 500-bed Sinai-Grace Hospital (located fifteen minutes from central campus) is one of the prominent community, surgically busy hospitals in Detroit.
- Hutzel Women’s Hospital houses the Departments of Orthopedics, Obstetrics and Gynecology, and ophthalmology.
- The Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, the largest specialty hospital in the Midwest for adult rehabilitation and physical medicine.
- The DMC Cardiovascular Institute, where a multidisciplinary team of top physicians, nurses and specialists work together in the areas of cardiology, cardiac surgery, vascular medicine and surgery, cardiovascular anesthesiology, cardiac behavioral medicine, and radiology.
- The closely-affiliated Kresge Eye Institute and Karmanos Cancer Institute.
Brush Mall on DMC Central Campus, with Children’s Hospital of Michigan in the background
The Wayne State University School of Medicine campus, with its own extensive research facilities, is immediately adjacent to the DMC campus. With a multitude of specialty departments located on a single campus, faculty, residents, and students have extensive exposure to general and specialty surgery across a broad range of patients and conditions.
The DMC institutions are under one administrative umbrella and all of the surgery faculty appointments are made by the Department, which provides for a uniform philosophy of what constitutes surgical education among our hospitals.
The diverse backgrounds and interests of the surgical faculty enrich the residency in several ways:
- First, the majority of the faculty are engaged in either basic or clinical research, or both, which adds greater depth to their teaching.
- Second, most of our faculty have more than one clinical interest or subspecialty.
- Third, the faculty are dedicated teachers.
- Fourth, each of our hospitals where residents rotate has full-time surgical faculty primarily based at that institution.
- Finally, the regional and national reputations and contacts of the faculty provide an extensive network, helping our residents with their plans after they have completed their training.
International Activities
We are especially proud that the Department is rapidly acquiring an international reputation and presence, through active educational and research collaborations with the Near and Middle East (especially Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt), India, and Brazil. In addition, the Department operates a surgical oncology telemedicine consultation service with client hospitals in Brazil.
This is a vibrant, state-of-the-art, and expanding department, pregnant with opportunity for the best and brightest faculty, residents, and students.