University of Chicago Program

Program Identity & Fit

The University of Chicago Urology Residency is an academic, university-based program rooted in a historic surgeon-scientist tradition (Charles Huggins' Nobel Prize-winning discovery of hormonal therapy for prostate cancer) that still shapes the section's identity and emphasis on discovery alongside clinical training. Residents rotate across four distinct sites—the Hyde Park main campus, Comer Children's Hospital, the Jesse Brown VA, and NorthShore—exposing trainees to a spectrum from quaternary academic urologic oncology and pediatric urology to VA and community-based practice. Research is structurally embedded through the Section of Urology Clinical Trial Unit (SUCTU), an investigator-initiated RCT infrastructure, the annual Schoenberg research competition, and expectations that residents present at regional/national/international conferences, reflecting the department's broader $13.3M/year, 98-active-trial research enterprise. The program values scholarly productivity and academic aptitude explicitly in its selection criteria and structures graduated clinical autonomy from intern management of admitted patients to chief-year oversight of complex robotic, laparoscopic, and open urologic care.