Our commitment to education is evident in all aspects of our residency training program, which continues to be a model for other orthopaedic and surgery residency programs. The program contains the necessary elements for the development of an educated orthopaedic surgeon. The Orthopaedic Residency Review Committee of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education recently reviewed and approved the program without citation. This is a tribute to our outstanding educational program. We currently have orthopaedic surgery fellows in orthopaedic oncology, sports medicine, hand and upper extremity surgery, spine surgery and joint replacement.

The clinical educational program in orthopaedic surgery at the University of Chicago is centered at the University of Chicago Medical Center and Weiss Memorial Hospital as a cohesive academic unit with a full-time clinical and basic science faculty dedicated to the care of patients; education of students, residents, and fellows; and the creation of new knowledge in the clinical and basic science of musculoskeletal diseases.  The clinical portion of the program is carried out primarily by the 15 full-time orthopaedic surgeons.  The clinical education is centered at inpatient units, outpatient clinics and the operating room. 

Clinical care of orthopaedic surgery is divided into sections that include joint reconstruction, spine, oncology, pediatrics, foot and ankle, hand and upper extremity as well as sports medicine.  The faculty is directly responsible as the primary physicians for patients and makes pre- and postoperative evaluations of patients with the residents.  There is no separation of clinics between the faculty and residents as well as very little conflict between operating room and clinic schedules.

Basic sciences are integrated into the educational program at the bedside, during clinical conferences and in a well-structured didactic curriculum. The faculty participates in all of the didactic education, which is designed to have a two-year repetitive sequence covering anatomy, bioengineering, biology and pathology. Additionally, residents have access to the following resources: a conference room of more than 700 square feet dedicated to orthopaedic education, computer-based audio visual system, microscope slide projector, audio-visual materials and a comprehensive orthopaedic library.

The Gerald Laros Memorial Library contains wall-to-wall custom bookcases, conference table and chairs as well as two computer stations with online access to Medline. The resident office adjacent to the library houses 14 workstations, x-ray view boxes and individual file space so that residents can work and study during daytime and evening hours. The library and resident offices are near our academic offices where we have added an Orthopaedic Oncology Learning Center, which contains all the orthopaedic oncology files, radiographs, oncology fellow’s office and oncology database.