Program Structure

The Duke Vascular Surgery Residency Program is designed to provide a solid grounding in the full spectrum of vascular surgical procedures for talented and motivated surgical trainees. Our residency experience is enhanced by the extraordinary clinical volume handled by the Duke hospitals, and the strong commitment of our faculty to education and scholarly achievement.

Our residency emphasizes broad-based training in both open and endovascular procedures, and residents will leave the program with the training and experience to manage, with confidence, all arterial and venous pathology with open, endovascular, or non-operative approaches.

We fully expect that graduating residents will be able, with equal skill, to do a femoral-tibial bypass with spliced arm vein or a laser atherectomy of the popliteal artery with retrograde tibial access. They will be able to perform open thoracoabdominal repair of an extent IV thoracoabdominal aneurysm as expertly as they deploy a fenestrated aortic endograft. By the end of the seven year training program, our trainees should feel comfortable preforming venous interventions of all types — from office-based sclerotherapy to saphenous vein ablation, to central venous recanalization and stenting.

Finally, our trainees will be adept at non-operatively managing vascular pathology, completing the comprehensive skill set needed to join any type of vascular surgery practice.

Locations

The residency is based at seven clinical training sites; Duke University Hospital, The Durham VA Medical Center, Duke Regional Hospital, WakeMed, Duke Raleigh Hospital, and Duke Ambulatory Surgery Center.

  • Duke University Hospital is a large tertiary referral center and a level 1 trauma center. The Vascular Surgery service at the University Hospital is a high volume practice with a large number and variety of complex cases including many major open arterial reconstructions, challenging limb salvage cases, and more esoteric disease processes like thoracic outlet syndrome and arteriovenous malformations.
  • The Durham VA Medical Center is completely integrated into the Duke vascular practice and offers trainees the opportunity to more independently manage the broad array of advanced atherosclerotic vascular disease that is typical in the VA patient population. The VA rotation has a large volume of traditional open vascular procedures that are increasingly rare in the endovascular era.
  • Duke Regional Hospital is a community hospital with a large number of complex dialysis patients as well as more routine limb salvage and cerebrovascular cases.
  • The Duke Raleigh Hospital is a mid-sized community hospital in nearby Raleigh which supports three Duke Vascular Surgeons. These accomplished surgeons have recently joined the Duke team after many years in private practice. This site provides exposure to many of the sorts of cases commonly seen in a large, full-spectrum private practice as well an outpatient angiography procedures.

Conferences

  • WEDNESDAY EDUCATION DAY
    • Gen Surgery M&M
      • Faculty and residents only
    • Grand Rounds (starts September first)
    • Didactic Conference
      • 9:00 AM
  • Vascular Conference
    • Rotating schedule
      • Vascular D&C
      • Oral Boards
      • Interesting Cases
      • Options &Indications
      • Guest Speakers
      • Trainee Presentations
  • PEC meetings Q 2months

Policies

Vacation

Vascular Surgery residents in the first two years will be allotted one two-week paid vacation per year, which is scheduled along with the clinical rotations at the beginning of the academic year. In the final three years, residents may take four weeks of vacation which are scheduled with the other senior trainees and the program director to minimize disruption of the clinical services. Vacation is typically taken during less busy clinical rotations.

Academic Conferences

Vascular Surgery residents are encouraged to attend at least one meeting per academic year. All travel must occur in the U.S. Residents are encouraged to be academically productive and will be granted additional meeting time for approved meetings where they have had an abstract accepted.

Residents should check with the Program Director prior to submitting abstracts to determine if the meeting is appropriate and confirm that travel will be supported by the division.

Benefits

Visit Duke's Graduate Medical Education site for information about stipends, benefits, and more.