Our Mission
The following four statements synthesize our mission:

• To provide the foundation for contemporary surgical training that reflects the practice of general surgery in the 21st century.
• To provide a supportive educational environment that fosters the development of professionalism in conjunction with personal growth and commitment to compassionate care.
• To provide research opportunities for those residents interested in pursuing further specialty training, in becoming independent investigators, or in becoming academic surgeons.
• To train surgeons who after having passed the qualifying and certifying examinations of the American Osteopathic Board of Surgery will remain competent surgeons, lifelong learners, teachers and leaders in a constantly changing environment by applying evidence-based medicine to the practice of surgery

Need and Vision
It is estimated that with 79 million baby boomers reaching retirement age and demanding more medical care, the shortage of general surgeons will worsen if the nation does not start producing more doctors. It is estimated that the nation will experience a projected shortage of 85,000 - 200,000 doctors come 2020. Unless more medical students begin their ten-year training soon, the supply will begin to diminish within a decade, when doctors from the baby boomer generation retire in massive quantities.

The addition of an osteopathic surgical residency program at Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center (GWV) is an important dimension of strengthening Geisinger’s near and long-term position as a leader in the training and development of surgical physicians.

The program is a five-year osteopathic surgical program. Five residents will be accepted each year in the program. Population trends in the surrounding counties along with Geisinger’s growing clinical program platform support this location.

Student interest in surgical programs continues to grow. There were few AOA-accredited programs that went unfilled in the AOA match this year. All of the ACGME programs in the northeast filled in this years NRMP match. Many DO’s matched into these positions. Surgical residents from the Geisinger Medical Center program and the PCOM program have been training at GWV for the past several years.

Geisinger is an integrated health care system that offers a unique learning environment. This unique learning environment has helped attract and retrain high caliber residents. An osteopathic surgical program will provide the opportunity to effectively compete with current programs in the state of Pennsylvania and also nationally. This program will strengthen Geisinger’s commitment to meet our ongoing recruitment needs and provide the surgical care to the people in our region.
 
Accreditation
The Geisinger Health System Osteopathic General Surgery Residency Program is accredited by the American Osteopathic Association (AOA) of the American College of Osteopathic Surgeons (ACOS) to train and graduate five categorical residents each year. Our program provides clinical and operative expertise in all areas of surgery including surgical subspecialties. Residents are exposed to progressively increasing levels of supervised clinical and operative responsibility thus providing the ideal environment for the development of independent surgeons.