Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center Program

Program Identity & Fit

Wake Forest's General Surgery Residency is a university-affiliated, tertiary/quaternary academic program anchored by a 933-bed Level I adult/pediatric trauma center, verified burn center, and high-volume transplant, surgical oncology, and colorectal services, serving both urban and rural populations with pathology ranging from routine to advanced, late-presenting disease. The program offers an optional one- to two-year Bradshaw Research Fellowship after PGY-3, embedding residents in institutes such as the Comprehensive Cancer Center and Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, reflecting a structure that supports but does not mandate an academic/research track. Graduated responsibility is deliberately staged year-by-year (burn/ICU supervision as PGY-2, consult service command as PGY-3, trauma service leadership as PGY-4, independent elective chairman practice as PGY-5), and the program explicitly states it trains residents both for immediate community practice and for competitive fellowships (surgical oncology, pediatric surgery, transplant, vascular, MIS), without a "cookie cutter" outcome expectation. Distinctive features include an in-house pediatric surgery experience unencumbered by a competing fellowship, a Kennedy Hopkins Scholars mentoring program for underrepresented residents, and a stated low-faculty-turnover, high-cohesion departmental culture that residents and leadership repeatedly frame as the program's defining strength.