
Vascular Surgery Fellowship and Integrated Residency
Geisinger’s Vascular Surgery programs prepare you to treat children and adults with even the most complex pathologies — and to pass the board exam like all our program graduates have since 1981.
About us
Diverse patients. Diverse pathologies. Cutting-edge technology. And a team that welcomes you as a trusted colleague from day one.
Those are just some of the features that make Geisinger’s ACGME-accredited Vascular Surgery Fellowship (5+2) and Integrated Residency (0+5) stand out from other programs.
Since 1981, we’ve trained skilled surgeons who are prepared to pass the board exam and join a small group of highly trained clinicians focused on all aspects of vascular care and surgery. Our residency program began with its inaugural internship program in the 2023 academic year.
As our vascular surgery fellow/resident, you’ll join a team that will welcome you as a learner — and a colleague.
The programs in vascular surgery are comprehensive and intensive, during which our residents and fellows will be expected to:
- Develop into a fully autonomous, independent vascular surgeon who’s ready to provide excellent, safe and compassionate care
- Become competent and confident in the evaluation, operative treatment and nonoperative management of patients with disorders of the arterial, venous and lymphatic systems
- Become a lifelong learner who’s able to conduct cutting-edge research and stay up-to-date on advancements in care
- Develop a sense of professionalism that will allow your patients and colleagues to trust you as a leader in vascular care
- Gain all the clinical education and experience you need for certification by the Vascular Surgery Board of the American Board of Surgery
- Understand all noninvasive vascular laboratory studies and their role in patient care, achieve certification by the ARDMS (i.e., RPVI certification) and be prepared to direct a noninvasive vascular laboratory
We’ve made sure every one of our vascular surgery fellows earns board certification. Our specialty is small and tightly knit, and we want to train exceptional colleagues who are as passionate as we are about this field.
Our values — kindness, excellence, safety, learning and innovation — are at the heart of everything we do. We provide high-quality, patient-centered, cost-effective care to our patients across central Pennsylvania. And our residents and fellows learn to do the same.
- Here at Geisinger, you get the best of both worlds: Training at a robust, nationally recognized academic medical center in the heart of Pennsylvania. And a location that enhances well-being and promotes work/life balance.
- Access to educational resources like:
- Simulation skill development and procedure workshops
- Research and quality improvement (QI) courses
- Geisinger has everything you need to thrive as a vascular surgery resident or fellow, including:
- 1,450 licensed beds, including 101 intensive care unit beds
- 88 operating rooms, including four hybrid rooms dedicated to vascular surgery
- State-of-the-art imaging facilities
- Full breadth of subspecialty services
- Compassionate staff
- Dedicated vascular surgery core faculty, residents and medical students
Are you ready to join us?
Program overview
The vascular surgery curriculum is designed to teach the skills needed to become exactly the kind of well-rounded, skilled, compassionate surgeon who makes a difference in patients’ lives.
Residency:
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See a sample Residency block rotation.
The five-year integrated vascular surgery residency is organized to provide the fundamentals of general surgery and patient care integrated with vascular surgery experiences that build on the knowledge of anatomy, physiology and pathology gained in medical school. Clinical rotations include general surgery, including acute care and trauma surgery, colon and rectal surgery, plastic surgery, surgical critical care, cardiothoracic, transplant surgery and surgical oncology. These general surgery rotations will be supervised by general surgery faculty and senior residents.
Dedicated vascular surgery educational experiences are integrated throughout the first two years of the program culminating in a longitudinal vascular surgery experience during the last three years of the program. The integrated vascular surgery residency program includes the evaluation and clinical management of inpatient acute vascular surgery patients and vascular surgery outpatients including a dedicated vascular laboratory assignment. Additional clinical experiences on the integrated vascular surgical service will focus on developing basic open and endovascular skills, performing inpatient vascular surgical consults, and overseeing the inpatient vascular consult service. The integrated vascular surgery experiences during all years of the program will be scheduled separately and supervised by vascular surgery faculty.
During the vascular laboratory experiences, supervision will be provided by an IAC (Intersocietal Accreditation Commission) accredited vascular laboratory with technical instruction by RPVI (Registered Physician in Vascular Interpretation)-certified vascular surgeons with the support of RVT (Registered Vascular Technologist) vascular laboratory technologists.
Throughout training, vascular residents will participate in daily educational conferences, bimonthly morbidity and mortality conferences and regularly scheduled simulation sessions. Professionalism will be an integral part of all educational activities. Residents will interact with hospital staff, peers and attendings in a collegial and professional manner and maintain professional demeanor and behavior with patients. Residents will demonstrate compassion and respect for the patient and family while upholding their rights to confidentiality and privacy. Residents will also demonstrate sensitivity to patient gender, age, race, religion, culture and disabilities. Residents will develop dependable work ethic and demonstrate traits of personal integrity.
Fellowship:
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See a sample Fellowship block rotation.
During the first year, the vascular fellow participates in clinical care and research activities while developing endovascular skills. First-year fellows participate in a large amount of endovascular surgery and a modest amount of traditional open vascular surgery procedures. These procedures are done under the supervision of staff vascular surgeons who train the fellows in these skills. The vascular surgeons at Geisinger are primary interventionalists for all procedures including carotid, peripheral and visceral stenting, thoracic stent grafts and AAA stent grafts. Overall endovascular volume includes approximately 500 interventional cases per graduating fellow. These cases are performed in dedicated endovascular suites used by the vascular staff.
A one-month block is spent in learning vascular lab skills including hands-on scanning in our own vascular laboratory with one of our registered vascular technicians. Our vascular laboratory performs approximately 14,000 examinations per year, allowing the fellow to develop competency in the interpretation and performance of vascular laboratory procedures. The fellows also read studies during their month rotation with instruction from the staff vascular surgeons, allowing the fellows to prepare for the RPVI exam.
The remaining time in the first year (approximately 15%) is spent in research efforts looking at either clinical projects or basic science research. The basic research program is supported with full-time research technicians. Presentations of findings at national and regional meetings and in publications in referred journals are strongly encouraged and supported.
During the second year, the vascular surgery fellow serves as the surgeon for more than 300 vascular disease patients whose conditions represent all the significant vascular reconstructive procedures. The attending staff physician supervises the fellows in clinic a half day per week, making regular patient rounds and providing consultation. Emergent and urgent procedures comprise approximately 10% of the caseload.
The clinical aspects of training are complemented with daily didactic, preoperative, staff rounds, a monthly journal club and morbidity and mortality conferences. The fellow is expected to participate in continued medical education activities for which a stipend is provided.
Mandatory sessions are offered daily and provide a comprehensive and in-depth look at a variety of topics in vascular surgery. Topics covered include:
VSCORE Vascular Didactics
This Week in SCORE – Vascular Surgery for Integrated Residents is a sequence of suggested topics over a two-year cycle where both the VSCORE and the SCORE core general surgery modules repeat every other year. This sequence is meant to be a less onerous time commitment for integrated residents, giving them exposure to all VSCORE modules two to three times during their residency. Each week features a new topic and a set of related modules, providing a systematic way for users to cover the Vascular Surgery-Fellowship Level content.
Case Conference
The senior resident on service at Geisinger Medical Center is responsible for identifying cases from the prior week for the purpose of reviewing interesting operative findings/imaging or approaches.
Morbidity and Mortality (M&M)
Fellow/resident most directly involved in surgical cases up for M&M review will lead the discussion for that case. The M&M conference is attended by all surgical faculty.
Vascular Video Lecture Series
This didactic session makes use of online educational resources and includes content from international and national lecture series and scientific courses.
Vascular Research Conference
This didactic session will review recent vascular and surgical research at Geisinger by faculty across the Surgical and Heart Institute.
Journal Club
Three to four papers are selected for discussion based on impact of publication, VSCORE modules, and current interesting cases. “Classic Journal Articles” are also referenced for discussion.
Surgery Simulation Workshop (PGY1, PGY2 and PGY3 only)
Simulation session will focus on general surgery simulation training as planned by the General Surgery Residency PD in collaboration with Vascular Surgery PD. PGY1, PGY2, and PGY3 Integrated Vascular Surgery residents will attend this simulation session. Vascular-surgery-focused simulation training will be attended by all residents of the integrated residency.
General Surgery Lecture (PGY1 and PGY2 only)
These lectures will focus on general surgery topics as planned by the General Surgery Residency PD. PGY1 and PGY2 Integrated Vascular Surgery residents will attend this lecture every Tuesday.
Vascular Lab Education Conference
These lectures will focus on vascular lab topics to include RPVI Review, review of challenging cases, and basics of non-invasive vascular imaging.
In keeping with Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) requirements, our fellows/residents are involved in quality improvement projects. These are designed to improve medical care, patient safety, workflow, and resident education. Many fellows/residents are also involved in research. We offer you:
- An involved faculty to serve as research and QI mentors
- A fundamentals of research curriculum
- Dedicated research support personnel and statisticians to guide you through study design, IRB approval and research funding
- The opportunity to serve on quality improvement committees in your field of interest
- Graduate medical education or departmental funding support to present your work at regional or national conferences
In the last two years, our fellows have presented at the following conferences:
- Delaware Valley Vascular Society Meeting
- Eastern Vascular Society Annual Meeting
James Elmore, MD: elmore jr - Search Results - PubMed (nih.gov)
Robert Garvin, MD: garvin r - Search Results - PubMed (nih.gov)
Gregory Salzler, MD: salzler g - Search Results - PubMed (nih.gov)
Jeremy Irvan, MD: irvan j - Search Results - PubMed (nih.gov)
Melissa Obmann, DO: obmann m - Search Results - PubMed (nih.gov)
Shivprasad Nikam, MD: nikam s - Search Results - PubMed (nih.gov)
Message from the chair
It's my pleasure to welcome you to apply to the Geisinger vascular surgery training program, one of the largest and busiest in the country. This program is well established and predates most programs in the country, having been founded in 1981. Since its inception, the focus of the Geisinger vascular surgery has been on the trainee’s surgical education. We offer an exceptional training environment and train future leaders in vascular care. Any decisions that we have made at Geisinger have been with the trainee and their education as the driving force in the decision process. This approach has allowed the development of an outstanding vascular surgery training program as evidenced by the great alumni that have completed their training at Geisinger.
In addition to its world class facilities, Geisinger is unique as our focus is always on the patient. We work together as one team. Our emergency department, operating rooms, vascular lab and offices are all located near one another to make it easier to care for the complex patients we treat.
Given our focus on education, we have a daily educational conference that all staff and trainees participate in. Additionally, research is an integral part of our efforts and is conducted by all staff and trainees. Our research efforts keep us enthused about new topics and technology in vascular surgery. When you hear the details of our work, I'm certain you'll be excited as well.
I look forward to meeting you during your interview visit to Geisinger, either in person or virtually, as it will further highlight the many great things that are happening here.
Sincerely,
James R. Elmore, MD
Chair, Vascular Surgery
Vice-Chair, Geisinger Heart & Vascular Institute

About Geisinger
Geisinger serves more than 1 million people in central and northeastern Pennsylvania. We’ve been nationally recognized for innovative practices in quality, delivery models such as ProvenCare® and the use of an award-winning electronic medical record, Epic®. Our physician-led system has about 24,000 employees, including nearly 1,700 physicians, 10 hospital campuses, two research centers and a health plan with more than half a million members, all of which boost our hometown economies by $7.1 billion annually.
Danville, Pa., is a unique and wonderful place to train. Opportunities for outdoor recreation are endless, the cost of living is low and traffic is almost nonexistent. In addition, we’re close enough to Philadelphia, New York City and Washington, D.C., to make weekend getaways easy. For more information, visit Uncovering PA: Northeastern Pennsylvania.
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FAQs
Find answers here to some of our most commonly asked questions.
We accept all applications through the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS).
Use the following links to locate ERAS application timelines, participating specialties and programs, tools and worksheets for applicants and more!
- Graduation from medical school within the past 3 years
- U.S. experience (i.e., “observership”) is preferred but not required
- Geisinger Medical Center does not offer observerships
- Current ECFMG certification
- Geisinger Medical Center offers J-1 visas to qualified candidates
All interviews take place remotely via Zoom.
We hope you’ll join us on interview day to learn more about the Geisinger difference, our unique training environment, and the opportunities we have to offer.
- Interview invitations are extended to prospective applicants via the interview scheduler system.
- Interviews occur as per the timelines shown above.
- If selected for an interview, you’ll have the opportunity to learn about our program more in-depth. You’ll also interact with current residents or fellows, which is an integral part of the interview process.