Baylor College of Medicine Program

Program Identity & Fit

Baylor's orthopedic surgery residency is a large academic program (six residents/level) embedded in the Texas Medical Center, drawing on an unusually broad constellation of affiliated sites—Ben Taub (Level I trauma/county), the busiest VA orthopedic service in the country, Texas Children's, MD Anderson, and Baylor St. Luke's McNair Campus, which functions as a dedicated orthopedic hospital. The program emphasizes early, graduated resident autonomy, with chiefs running the Ben Taub and VA services under faculty oversight, and residents rotating through every subspecialty twice across junior and senior years. Research is structurally embedded rather than optional: at least 60 protected days, an expectation of one publishable project per resident, and access to dedicated biomechanics, tissue engineering, and cartilage labs through the multi-institutional Bone Disease Program. Over half of graduates enter academic faculty positions, and the department explicitly frames its mission around producing future academic leaders while also offering a Guatemala surgical mission trip for residents interested in global orthopedic care.