Dartmouth- Hitchcock-Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital Program

Program Identity & Fit

Dartmouth-Hitchcock's General Surgery Residency is a university-affiliated, tertiary/quaternary academic program based at a 500-bed academic medical center in rural Lebanon, NH, serving a catchment area of over 1.5 million people while also rotating through community and critical-access hospitals (Concord, New London, Mt. Ascutney) and the White River Junction VA. The near-absence of subspecialty fellowships (only MIS and vascular) concentrates complex operative volume directly onto residents, who assume senior leadership responsibility as early as PGY-3, producing chief case numbers and diversity described as comparable to any program nationally. Research or career-development time (1-2 years) is strongly recommended though not mandatory, with flexible pathways spanning outcomes/disparities research, global surgery, and masters degrees (education, public health, business, ethics), reflecting an identity built around individualized trajectory-shaping rather than a fixed research mandate. Most graduates pursue fellowship training, with a smaller proportion (~20%) entering private practice or military service, and the program explicitly values intellectual curiosity, humility, self-care, and advocacy for underserved patients within a small, close-knit faculty-resident training environment.