Virginia Mason Franciscan Health Program

Program Identity & Fit

Virginia Mason's urology residency is a small, single-resident-per-year, community/university-hybrid program built around a tight-knit, apprenticeship-style structure at a First Hill, Seattle academic-community medical center, supplemented by rotations at Madigan Army Medical Center (general urology, unique population), Swedish Medical Center (dedicated pediatric urology apprenticeship, one resident to two attendings), and Tacoma General (high-volume robotic oncology/trauma). The program offers unusual early exposure to kidney transplant surgery beginning in PGY2, a URPS fellowship on site that residents interact with directly, and a curriculum explicitly designed to prepare graduates for either clinical urology practice or academic medicine, with graduates split between fellowships, academic posts, and private practice. Research is present but resident-driven and opportunistic - built on faculty engagement in subspecialty work and access to the Benaroya Research Institute - rather than a mandated or protected scholarly track. The program emphasizes graduated autonomy, camaraderie within a small resident cohort, and rotation-based subspecialty immersion (transplant, pediatric, reconstructive/prosthetic, oncologic robotics) over a research-heavy or high-prestige academic identity.