Working Environment and Hours

Graduate education in surgery requires a commitment to continuity of patient care. This continuity of care must take precedence - without regard to the time of day, day of the week, number of hours already worked, or on-call schedules. At the same time, patients have a right to expect a healthy, alert, responsible, and responsible physician dedicated to delivering effective and appropriate care.

​​​​The program director must establish an environment that is optimal both for resident education and for patient care, while ensuring that undue stress and fatigue among residents are avoided. It is his or her responsibility to ensure assignment of appropriate in-hospital duty hours so those residents are not required to perform excessively difficult or prolonged duties regularly. It is desirable that residents' work schedules be designed so that on average, excluding exceptional patient care needs, residents have at least 1 day out of 7 free of routine responsibilities and be on call in the hospital no more often than every third night. During these on-call hours, residents should be provided with adequate sleeping, lounge, and food facilities. There must be adequate backup so that patient care is not jeopardized during or following assigned periods of duty. Support services must be such that residents do not spend an inordinate amount of time in non-educational activities that can be discharged properly by other personnel."

Salaries and Benefits:

Meal Allowance: This is allotted on a monthly basis, based on the number of nights on call. Each resident is given a "credit card" to which the meal allowance of $10/day on call weekdays and $15/day on weekends is credited on a monthly basis.

Insurance: Health, hospital, dental insurance and prescription plan for the resident, spouse and dependent children are provided by MMC. Life insurance, in an amount equal to the annual salary paid, disability insurance, and professional liability insurance are also included in the benefits package.

Book Allowance: Each categorical resident at PGY2 and above is provided with a $300 book allowance on a yearly basis.

Lab Coats: Two white lab coats per year are issued to each resident.

Other: Each categorical resident at the PGY2 level is provided with surgical loops upon successful completion of USMLE Step 3.

Counseling and psychological support services are available.

Salaries (Effective July 1, 2016):

PGY1: $52,086
PGY2: $55,509
PGY3: $58,857
PGY4: $61,627
PGY5: $64,420