Massachusetts General Hospital

The Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), the third oldest general hospital in the United States, was chartered in 1811. With over 800 beds and a 3,500 member medical staff, MGH is the largest of the teaching hospitals affiliated with Harvard Medical School. MGH admits over 35,000 patients annually, and sees over 750,000 patients in the outpatient and emergency department settings. Approximately 25,000 operations are performed by the surgical staff at the MGH each year. The original building of the Massachusetts General Hospital, the Bulfinch Building, houses the historic Ether Dome. While on rotation at the MGH, residents have the opportunity to learn from expert surgeons on the private service, as well as gain independent operating experience on the ward service. Residents also attend a number of weekly educational conferences, including Hand Conference on Tuesday mornings, Grand Rounds on Wednesday mornings, Attending Rounds on Thursday mornings, and Ortho/Plastics Joint Hand Conference on Friday mornings.

Each of the attending staff has one or more ambulatory outpatient clinics at their respective hospitals.  Residents are assigned to attend these clinics and see patients preoperatively with the attending surgeons - discussing the clinical problems, options for management, possible complications, and formulating a treatment plan.  For cosmetic patients, residents also gain experience in financial discussions.   Preoperative photographs of the patients' booked for surgery may be taken by residents and faculty.  The residents also get the opportunity to see exams and follow up postoperative patients that they may have assisted with in surgery and managed postoperatively in the hospital.  They are able to take postoperative photographs and evaluate the results of the treatment administered. At each of the hospitals, there are also resident clinics that are run primarily by the chief residents including patients with reconstructive and cosmetic problems. Attending surgeons are available on site for consultation and supervision. They also see patients independently in their own clinic (cosmetic and reconstructive at BIDMC and MGH) with ready availability of senior faculty for consultation.  The chief resident, although supervised, has responsibility for planning and execution of surgical procedures and major responsibility with supervised independent decision-making in preoperative and postoperative care.