The PGY-6 (vice-chief) and PGY-7 (chief) years are capstone years for neurosurgical residents. Residents gain the knowledge and technical skill to ready them for independent clinical practice. The vice-chief or chief resident assigns duty schedules and operative cases for residents on the service and makes (or delegates to the PGY4-5 resident) the making of the call and vacation schedules for all residents in the Department.
The vice-chief and chief residents supervise the educational activities of the service, including case presentations by senior and junior residents at conferences. The chief resident participates in the triage of emergent add on cases and the distribution of consults to the appropriate on-call and subspecialty staff surgeons. The chief resident supervises and serves as a resource between staff rounds for junior and senior resident evaluations of consult patients and other acute clinical problems, serving as a teacher and formulating definitive care plans for final review with the attending staff before implementation of major decisions.The chief resident serves as a nexus for management and communication of a complex interdisciplinary surgical department, with practical emphasis on systems-based practice, communication, and professionalism skills.
There will be a rotation at Mercy Hospital in a community neurosurgery setting. At Mercy Hospital, the PGY-6 resident is the chief resident at this high-volume training site and is responsible to management of neurosurgical patients on the ward and in the ICU. The resident will provide consultative services to colleagues in the hospital and attending outpatient clinics with a supervising attending. The resident at Mercy Hospital will assist or lead surgeries under the tutelage of an attending neurosurgeon.
The chief resident performs complex intracranial and spinal neurosurgical operations under attending supervision and collaborates with the attending surgeon.
The chief resident will have primary responsibility for management of all patients of OUMC Adult Tower (and at times, Oklahoma Children’s Hospital), including leading work rounds in the ICU, formulation of care plans for ICU and ward patients, supervising the ordering of imaging studies by the resident team, and making key medical and surgical management decisions (with consent and supervision of attending neurosurgeon).
The chief resident is expected to mentor the more junior residents on the service, and review anatomy, pathophysiology, and principles of treatment in the context of the specific patients present on the service.
The chief resident will participate in and perform surgical procedures under the supervision of the neurosurgery faculty as listed above. The resident will be expected to prepare for surgical cases by review of the patient's record and surgical literature pertinent to indications, technical details of the procedure, complications and peri-operative management and will review this information with faculty at the time of the procedure.
The chief resident will attend all Department of Neurosurgery didactic conferences and will present patients from the service at work and educational conferences. The chief resident will participate in the non-clinical competency projects.
The chief resident will also be expected to perform clinically driven, case-based study (i.e. performing literature searches on topics relevant to upcoming surgical patients).