University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago Program

Program Identity & Fit

UIC's integrated plastic surgery residency is an academic, six-year program built across a multi-site consortium spanning a tertiary university hospital, a safety-net Level 1 trauma center (Mount Sinai), a pediatric craniofacial/cleft specialty hospital (Shriners), a quaternary burn center (University of Chicago), and a private aesthetic practice (Warner Institute), giving residents exposure ranging from underserved trauma and reconstructive populations to elective cosmetic surgery in a single track. The program is operatively heavy, with graduating case logs around the 75th percentile, and structures training around named clinical pillars ("Surgery in General," "Plastic Surgery Adjacent," "Plastic Surgery") with progressively autonomous roles culminating in a supervised-autonomous-practitioner PGY6 year. Research is embedded but not central to identity: a research director coordinates resident scholarship, annual publication expectations exist, and abstract submission to the regional MAPS meeting is required from years 3-6, though this sits alongside heavy clinical/procedural emphasis rather than a dedicated academic development track. The program explicitly values residents who arrive with a completed research project (podium or published), demonstrated resilience and work ethic, and interpersonal/teamwork skills documented in letters, reflecting its diverse, multi-site, safety-net-inclusive clinical model.