Indiana University School of Medicine Program

Program Identity & Fit

Indiana University's Orthopaedic Surgery Residency is an academic, tertiary-referral program anchored by IU Health Methodist Hospital, one of the busiest Level 1 trauma centers in the country, giving residents high-acuity exposure to complex trauma, adult reconstruction, and pediatric orthopaedics. The program is structurally bifurcated into a five-year clinical track and a separate six-year research track with its own match, and every resident regardless of track must complete a mentored research project carrying through PGY2-PGY4 culminating in a publication-ready manuscript, reflecting a scholarship-embedded curriculum rather than optional add-on research. Extensive subspecialty fellowship infrastructure (trauma, sports medicine, adult reconstruction) with dedicated research coordinators, multicenter consortium participation (METRC), and named didactic/lectureship traditions (Garceau-Wray) signal a department oriented toward producing both community and academic surgeons who leave with a genuine research portfolio. The department explicitly supports both community practice and academic career paths as end goals, suggesting it values residents who can perform at high surgical volume while also engaging seriously with structured scholarly output.