PGY-1 Year
During the initial year of residency, you will spend about one-half of the academic year at the Phoenix VA Integrated Healthcare System, divided among rotations on General Surgery, Vascular Surgery and the Surgical Intensive Care Unit.  In order to meet the recently mandated (by the surgery residency review committee) endoscopy requirements, you will spend two months at the Alaska Native Medical Center dedicated primarily to the endoscopy suite.  To better prepare you for participation in your future clinical, investigative and administrative responsibilities, we have set aside a one-month rotation in our simulation education (SimEt) center.  The year is rounded out with various clinical surgery rotations at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center.

PGY-2 Year
Starting now and through the rest of your resident training, each rotation is a two-month block. While at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center, you will be assigned to rotations on a general surgery service, the surgical critical care unit, and the Hepatobiliary-Pancreas/Transplantation service.  The Phoenix VA Integrated Healthcare System, the Phoenix Indian Medical Center and the Alaska Native Medical Center will each provide you with rotations on General Surgery services.

PGY-3 Year
During this critically important "turning point" year, you will share senior-level decision-making responsibility for patients who come through the Level I trauma center at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center. During this experience, you will have the immediate support of dedicated faculty trauma specialists who take in-hospital call with you on a rotating 24-hour basis. There are two-month patient care experiences at Banner Desert Medical Center and at Banner Estrella Medical Center.  During your Plastic Surgery/OMFS rotation, you will gain experience on managing patients with hand, traumatic facial and cosmetic issues.  Finnaly, you will spend one two-month block under the direction of a large-practice Pediatric Surgery group at the Phoenix Children's Hospital.

PGY-4 Year
To provide you with the opportunity to assume the full leadership role  of a senior level house officer, we offer a blend of rotations in general surgery and the specialties.  While at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center, you will be the chief resident on Vascular Surgery, Endocrine Surgery, Trauma Surgery and Non-Cardiac Thoracic Surgery. Your skills will undergo further maturation while you are the senior level resident on General Surgery services at the Alaska Native Medical Center, Banner Desert Medical Center and Banner Estrella Medical Center.

PGY-5 Year
This final year of training exposes the house officers to the complexities of surgical decision-making through several venues. You will be chief resident on the General, Vascular and Hepatobiliary-Pancreas/Transplantation services at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center and at the Phoenix VA Integrated Healthcare system. 

Call Policies
As one should expect from any resident training program, all AGGME-established guidelines for work hours are readily met. Within this training program, approximately one-third of our house officers are assigned to rotations that have a small home call commitment. The remaining rotations have a frequency of in-hospital call that, viewed across those rotations, averages less than one in five days.

Operative Experience
As there are no fellowship programs in the Phoenix Integrated Surgical Residency, the general surgery house officers are exposed to a tremendous surgical experience in terms of breadth and complexity of operative cases. The teaching faculty members are committed to allow qualified house officers to perform these operations as chief surgeon. Hence, over the past two years, the graduates of our program conducted an average of 1,100 "index" operations (with well over 275 majors as chief resident).