Below is an outline of the electives and conferences offered to residents and medical students.
Vascular Surgery Acting Internships at MMC are open to students enrolled in an ACGME-approved medical schools in the United States who are committed to or strongly considering a career in vascular surgery. An Acting Internship offers students the opportunity to experience MMC and the Portland community while gaining significant experience in vascular surgery. Acting Interns at MMC are expected to be integral members of their resident teams, gaining diagnostic and therapeutic skills by starting to manage basic surgical patients.
Acting Interns will be expected to:
- Pre-round on a small subset of patients each morning and to present these patients on formal team rounds
- See a basic surgery consult patient and discuss the diagnosis, further workup and subsequent management with the team and/or the attending
- See patients in surgical clinics and present them to attendings
- Scrub as a first assist on at least one case per week
- Perform basic bedside procedures such as abscess drainage or chest tube placement under close supervision
- Give a formal presentation on a topic related to their patient care while on service at the completion of their rotation
- Attend all Department of Surgery teaching conferences, including the Tuesday afternoon resident conference, Thursday morning specialty conference, M&M. and Grand Rounds and all service-specific conferences
- Take call on a roughly q4 schedule
If you have any questions or would like further information, please contact the Medical Education Program Coordinator, Madi Brooks, at mbrooks@mmc.org or 207-712-0368.
The Department of Surgery at the Maine Medical Center is committed to medical student education at all levels. The presence of medical students and residents at MMC generates a spirit of inquiry, energy, and excellence throughout the institution. Superb teaching programs have been an integral part of Maine Medical Center's emergence as the major tertiary care center in Maine, as well as a leader of community hospitals. Our size allows us to get to know our medical students on a personal basis and encourages our faculty to accommodate individual needs and learning styles during. We prepare individuals to understand the ethical responsibilities of patient care and foster the process that allows them to be teachers and independent thinkers throughout their careers.
We are affiliated with the Tufts University School of Medicine, and provide the basic surgical clerkship to the students in the TUSM Maine Track in both the block-based curriculum and Longitudinal Integrated Curriculum. We also host TUSM third and fourth year students for their surgical elective rotations, as well as students from other institutions wishing to come for a visiting elective rotation. These Acting Internships (AIs) are open to fourth-year medical students from across the country.
Every Thursday from 7-11 am, residents and faculty have protected time for educational purposes. The cornerstone of our didactics is VSCORE, which takes place at 7 am every week. In this conference, a resident will present a vascular or general surgery topic followed by discussion and mock-oral type scenarios with faculty after the presentation. In addition to this, we have M&M twice each month, journal club monthly, and attend general surgery grand rounds at least once each month. Other rotating conferences include:
- Interesting Case Conference, in which a medical student or junior resident will present a case to the faculty who will lead a lively discussion about presentation, diagnosis, and treatment.
- Regular updates on quality improvement initiatives and departmental research.
- Attending-led didactics on reading vascular lab studies.
- Guest lectures on a variety of topics including end-of-life care, billing & coding, anesthesia, and anything else that may prove useful to help plan your career.
- Formal skills and simulation sessions, which can range from open anastomosis to endovascular techniques using models and simulators at our simulation center.
On a quarterly basis, residents are excused from these didactics and instead use this time for team-building activities and to spend a few hours outside of the hospital.