Hackensack Meridian Health-Hackensack University Medical Center Program

Program Identity & Fit

Hackensack University Medical Center's General Surgery Residency is a young, university-affiliated academic program (inaugural class 2019) built alongside the newly founded Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine, operating out of a high-volume, technologically advanced surgical tower (the Helena Theurer Pavilion). The five-year categorical program (5 categorical, 2 preliminary per year) structures training around the SCORE curriculum with simulation labs, protected didactic time, and mandatory clinical research plus a quality-improvement project, and offers select residents extended 1-2 year research sabbaticals at outside institutions such as Memorial Sloan Kettering and Ohio State. Its short track record shows a strong pull toward competitive subspecialty fellowships (vascular, plastics, breast, transplant, MIS, pediatric surgery) rather than direct-to-practice general surgery, signaling an institutional identity oriented toward fellowship preparation within a high-volume, resource-rich, technology-forward environment. The program explicitly values resident feedback and involvement in shaping training, framing itself as still actively defining its culture as a new but ambitious academic surgical department.