Department of Urology
Last Updated: 1/29/02
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Rotations:

First year residents (URO-1) spend four months on the University rotation and 8 months at the VA Hospital .  Both of these rotations provide resident exposure to a large volume of non-private patients.  Both of these rotations have adequate facilities for in-patient and out-patient care.  During both of these rotations first year urology residents learn, under supervision, the proper assessment of urologic out-patients with particular attention to preoperative assessment.  They are responsible for the evaluation and subsequent admission history and physical for those patients requiring hospitalization.  They also see these patients for postoperative management in conjunction with the chief resident.  During the hospitalization, the first year resident is responsible, under supervision, for the routine hospital care, arrangements for diagnostic studies, and preparation for the operating room.  During this year, the residents are initiated into the fundamentals of transurethral prostatic resection under the personal supervision of the faculty. During October and November of the first urology year, residents are assigned to the freshmen medical students anatomy class; a six week period during which time the students are dissecting the abdomen, pelvis and perineum.  This six week assignment consists of three, four hour sessions per week; one hour of lecture followed by three hours of dissection.  The residents attend the lectures and then serve as instructors, each with four medical students per cadaver.  This basic science instruction, although time consuming, has proven to be very helpful as the residents progress to the more senior years. 

 

Second year (URO-2) urology residents are assigned to three four month rotations: the LeBonheur Children's Hospital rotation, Methodist rotation, and the University rotation.  The Children's Hospital rotation is under the direction of Dr. H. Norman Noe, the training director for that institution and the Program Director for a fellowship in Pediatric Urology.  For most of our residents, this rotation represents the first direct exposure to pediatric patients since their pediatric experience as a medical student.  Therefore, a significant amount of time is devoted to provide the residents with an understanding of the fundamentals of pediatric care.  In conjunction with a Uro-4 urology resident, a pediatric fellow and the two full time pediatric urologists in our division, the second year urology resident is exposed to the pre and post-operative care of pediatric urologic patients as well as the care of hospitalized pediatric urologic patients, most of which undergo diagnostic or therapeutic surgical procedures.  The second year urology resident, under supervision, is responsible for patient care in the LeBonheur Hospital outpatient urologic clinic, the Children's Special Services Clinic, and the

 

Myelomeningocele Clinic.  The resident is also responsible for the evaluation and management of hospitalized patients, under the supervision of the urological staff as noted above. An additional four month rotation to the University is provided for the second year urology resident.  During this rotation, the resident assumes additional responsibilities and continues to participate in the out-patient clinics and in the care of hospitalized patients.  Training in transurethral prostatic surgery continues during this rotation and in most cases progresses to a level at which the operative procedure can be totally completed within a prescribed amount of time.  The resident is given the opportunity to perform open surgical procedures such as, but not limited to, ureterolithotomy, simple open prostatectomies, pelvic lymph node dissections, and other procedures of similar difficulty.  He/she is given the opportunity for additional decision making; for example, pre and postoperative care.  In all cases, the resident remains under faculty supervision.

 

Third year urology residents (URO-3) spend four months each at the University, Methodist Hospital and the Veterans Administration Medical Center-Spinal Cord Injury Urology Unit.  During these rotations, the resident functions as a chief resident. Responsibilities therefore, are greater in that the resident reports directly to the training directors of the respective institutions.  Urology residents assigned to this rotation are responsible for the University Urology Service; a service representing three types of patients; (1) private patients of the voluntary urology faculty who agree to admit to this service and allow resident participation in the medical and surgical management of their patients; (2) private patients of the full-time UT urology faculty; (3)  non-private patients are seen in the hospital clinic by the resident, supervised by the training director, and subsequently hospitalized to the non-private service.  Postoperative care of these surgical patients is performed in the non-private hospital clinic by the resident under supervision by the training director.  On average, the University service has 10 patients; 5 private and 5 non-private.  This is an opportunity for the resident to observe and participate in the in-patient care and surgery of private patients of various faculty members.  In so doing, the resident is under the direct supervision of the individual urologic practitioners (all of whom have faculty appointments) as well as the training director.  Supervision of the resident on non-private patients, both out-patient and in-patient, is accomplished by the training director.  Methodist Hospital is likewise a large private hospital in which the residents have a four month rotation.  The resident is assigned responsibility for certain in-patients by the faculty. In addition, Methodist Hospital maintains a non-private service with an average urologic census of between 2 and 4 patients.  There is also a weekly out-patient urologic non-private clinic which is staffed by the resident under the supervision of the training director.  The resident is responsible for the pre-operative assessment, hospitalization and post-operative care of these non-private patients.  Supervision of these activities is performed by the program director.  Methodist Hospital is also affiliated with the University of Tennessee, Memphis and is a training site for many UT Memphis residency programs; including General Surgery. 


The third and final rotation for third year urology residents is the Veterans Administration Hospital Spinal Cord Injury Urology Stone Unit.  This unit is located in the recently completed 150 bed Spinal Cord Injury Hospital which is connected to the Memphis VA Hospital.  The urology unit in this facility contains three operating rooms and a four bed recovery suite. It is connected to the main urology suite which consists of approximately 8000 square feet.  These two facilities present for greater than 10,000 square feet of urology space.  Each unit is equipped with the latest technology.  The unit provides services for the Spinal Cord Injury Hospital, patients with neurogenic and calculus disease from the main VA Hospital, and serves as a referral center for VA Hospitals in the entire southeastern part of the United States.   As a consequence, the facility is very busy with referred patients for ESWL and other operative procedures.  It likewise is a central referring area for spinal cord injury patients in this region.  The training directors for this unit are Dr. Ragi Wiygul and Dr. Robert Wake. The resident is responsible for the pre and post operative care of patients referred to this facility as well as those in the Spinal Cord Injury Hospital.  The resident is responsible for the performance of ESWL and other operative procedures as indicated on the stone patients as well as the diagnostic and therapeutic procedures as necessary on the spinal cord injury patients.  During this time, the resident is under the supervision of the urology faculty at this facility.

 

Fourth year urology residents (URO-4) are chief residents for four months each at University, Veterans Administration Hospital and LeBonheur Children's Hospital.  All three of these rotations represent standard chief residencies.  At University, the chief resident is responsible for organization of the service both out-patient and in-patient.  It is the chief residents responsibility, under the supervision of the training director, to assign duties to the first and second year urology residents, to organize the surgical schedule, to prepare for daily afternoon rounds with the training director, to maintain a liaison with other relevant services, and to provide consultation when necessary to the trauma center.  The chief resident at the Veterans Administration Hospital is likewise expected to organize the service and assign junior resident functions with the goal of an efficient management of the in-patient and out-patient services.  The chief resident is under the direct supervision of the relevant training director during this four month rotation.  He/she is not responsible for, but maintains a close liaison with, the third year urology resident in the Spinal Cord injury Urology Stone Center.  The final four month rotation of the fourth urology year is at LeBonheur Children's Hospital as chief resident.  In this position, the resident is responsible for organization of the pediatric urology service with supervision from the pediatric fellow and the pediatric training director and is responsible for organization and staffing of the pediatric clinics and for the preoperative and postoperative care of these patients.  Operative procedures are performed under the supervision of the pediatric training director, and data complied to date indicating that a satisfactory surgical experience is occurring.

The Department of Urology

The University of Tennessee Health Science Center

Text Box: Residency