University of Miami expands surgical residency program at JFK Medical Center – Orlando Sentinel
At first there will be hernias and appendixes. Then, gall bladders.
Later, in their fourth or fifth year of training, they can look forward to operating on colons and carotid arteries.
For the first time in Palm Beach County history, newly minted M.D.’s are training to become surgeons, with the launch of a new surgical residency program at JFK Medical Center in partnership with the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
Ten recent medical school graduates started work this month. They will be residents for five years before their training is complete.
At that point, JFK Medical Center Chief Executive Officer Gina Melby said, the hope is that some will settle in the community to replace the aging population of existing doctors.
She wants people in Palm Beach who often fly to Boston for medical care to recognize her hospital’s affiliation with the University of Miami, and consider staying here for their treatments.
“People talk on the island about how we don’t have academics and you have to fly to the north and east,” she said. “Well, it’s not necessary. We will have 66 residents in internal medicine, 10 residents in surgery and two in palliative care.”
Patients at JFK will interact often with the surgical residents. They will see them entering in clusters during their mentor doctors’ grand rounds, when doctors check on patients’ progress.
They also will encounter them in the operating room, where supervising doctors will give them the opportunity to step in and take over an operation.
Dr. Lucy De La Cruz, 29, of Miami, is one of those who will be taking up the scalpel. She attended medical school in the Dominican Republic and spent a year gaining critical care experience at George Washington University. She hopes to specialize as a breast surgeon.
“This is the opportunity of a lifetime,” she said. “It’s very competitive; there may be 3,000 applicants for six positions.”
Dr. Robert Kozol, who directs the surgical residency program, said the physicians love having residents around because of their enthusiasm and their focus on the newest and best in medicine.
“Your best medical care in the country is always at a teaching hospital,” he said. “The residents are continually questioning what you are doing, and they want 2011 answers, not what you learned 20 years ago.”
Dr. Chadwick Rastatter, 26, of Fort Lauderdale realized he wanted to be a surgeon during medical school in Grenada.
“Surgery can be really gratifying; you see people go from unhealthy to healthy right away,” he said. “And one of the most important things we learn is when not to do surgery.”
Long hours and fairly low pay are part and parcel of being a medical resident. Dr. Alberto Zarak, 31, came here from Peru and has spent time doing transplant research at Jackson Memorial Medical Center in Miami. He hopes to become a transplant surgeon.
Dr. Alvaro Castillo, 30, of Nicaragua, spent two years in a residency at Jackson Memorial.
“I think people outside of medicine don’t understand how hard we work,” he said. “If you go into medicine, you’re not doing it for the money.”