Orthopaedic Surgery Residency

How We Learn: Conferences

Each of our four main teaching hospitals offers a wide range of conference and clinic opportunities.

Each hospital has its own conference schedule. Two conferences are attended by all the residents in the program.

Core curriculum: This conference occurs every Friday from 8 to 10 a.m. and it is the cornerstone of the resident education program. Approximately two times per month, the session also includes a Bioskills Laboratory. On these days the core curriculum is extended from 10 a.m. to noon.

Anatomy Lab: Historically, residents complete a full-body dissection every other year. With our new Bioskills Laboratory, we are doing more dissection on a regular basis. The PGY-1s get excellent anatomy review when they help teach the UConn School of Medicine anatomy course each fall.

Bioskills Lab: Some Friday mornings are spent in the Bioskills Laboratory. We have six full arthroscopy set-ups! Various attendings go through arthroscopy skills with the residents, and we’re able to practice with cadaver parts. A big screen in the room can project one of the arthroscopy cameras and it can also project from the operating rooms in the building. In other words, we can watch one of the attendings performing an actual procedure while residents’ practice it on the cadavers.

Conference: An open forum to discuss a selected evidence-based medicine article. Time is also set aside to discuss important issues related to the program.

Monthly Journal Club: Residents and faculty review articles from the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery. The articles are selected by the chief resident.

Hartford Orthopaedic Forum: This monthly conference serves as Grand Rounds for the whole orthopaedic community and meets at a local country club. The guest speakers are renowned surgeons. Arrangements are made for these individuals to speak at the Core Curriculum the next morning too. This forum provides residents exposure to leaders in orthopaedic surgery and to surgeons practicing in the surrounding community.

In addition to the aforementioned lectures, each hospital has its own specific schedule of conferences that are attended by faculty and residents. These conferences often focus on a particular subspecialty interest (i.e. hand, sport medicine, etc) and allow for direct interaction between attendings and residents. Each week there is a Trauma Conference just for the PGY-2 residents. In general, a chapter from the textbook “Fractures” is reviewed. Dr. Browner is the lead editor of this comprehensive text.

HH Skeletal Trauma: On most Monday mornings, the PGY-2s meet with various attendings to review chapters of “Skeletal Trauma”.