University of Minnesota Program

Program Identity & Fit

This is an integrated six-year Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery residency built on a city-wide model that pairs University of Minnesota general surgery training with rotations across multiple Twin Cities-area affiliates, including Regions Hospital, the VA Medical Center, North Memorial, and private-practice plastic surgeons, giving residents exposure to both academic tertiary care and community-based practice settings. The program has a distinctive, structured international surgical mission component (Central/South America, India, Philippines) tied to a multidisciplinary cleft lip and palate clinic, giving residents concentrated congenital-anomaly reconstructive experience beyond the standard curriculum. Research is a mandatory, longitudinal expectation rather than an elective add-on, with quarterly resident research meetings, dedicated financial support for national presentations, and both clinical and bench project options built into the six-year timeline. Recent graduate placement into subspecialty fellowships (microsurgery, aesthetic surgery) signals a program oriented toward further subspecialization after residency, valuing residents who can sustain multi-year research productivity alongside broad operative exposure across a diverse faculty network.