Virtua Program

Program Identity & Fit

Virtua's General Surgery Residency is a new but structurally seasoned program, built atop Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital's decades-long tradition of hosting surgical trainees in general, transplant, and vascular surgery, now formalized through an academic affiliation with Rowan University. The clinical environment is multi-site community-based across five Virtua hospitals in South Jersey (Marlton, Mount Holly, Voorhees, Lourdes) with defined rotations at outside tertiary partners (Cooper University Hospital for SICU/trauma, CHOP for pediatric surgery), giving residents broad exposure to general, colorectal, vascular, transplant, breast, and bariatric surgery rather than a single flagship academic center. Research infrastructure exists at the health-system level (IRB, HRPP, dedicated research administration) but is not described as central to the surgical curriculum itself, which instead emphasizes SCORE-based didactics, simulation training, and graduated community/tertiary clinical exposure. The program's stated outcomes goal is producing residents ready either for independent community general surgery practice or subspecialty fellowship, reflecting a broad-based, community-anchored training identity rather than a research-intensive academic powerhouse.