Program overview

Weekly schedule

The program’s didactics consist of daily protected time from 6:30 to 8 a.m., arranged in a weekly schedule:

Monday – Weekly fracture conference to review weekend consults and interesting fracture cases from the prior week, as well as upcoming fracture cases.

Wednesday – Topics change based on a four-week cycle:

• Week 1 – Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS) Journal Club
• Week 2 – Resident Orthopaedic Knowledge Update (OKU) review
• Week 3 – Morbidity and Mortality and Management Conference
• Week 4 – Rotating topics on wellness, ethics, patient safety and diversity

Tuesday, Thursday and Friday – Lectures based on the included block schedule (released at the start of each academic year). The lecture plan consists of a 52-week, 10-block schedule divided among the following:

• Basic science and anatomy (five weeks)
• Adult reconstruction (five weeks)
• Trauma (six weeks)
• Pediatrics (six weeks)
• Hand (five weeks)
• Foot and ankle (five weeks)
• Spine (five weeks)
• Sports medicine (five weeks)
• Shoulder and elbow (five weeks)
• Oncology (five weeks)

The program director selects topics based on the frequency in which each topic occurs on the Orthopaedic In-Training Examination (OITE). The curriculum content and organization undergo yearly review as part of the annual program evaluation performed by the Program Evaluation Committee with input from subspecialty faculty and guest lecturers.

The lecture curriculum will take place over two years. The most important topics will repeat every year, while less commonly tested topics will alternate each year. The alternating curriculum will allow you to complete the full curriculum twice during your training.

Supplemental activities

The program will supplement this weekly didactic schedule with additional education activities throughout the year (schedule to be released each academic year):

• Subspecialty journal clubs – Subspecialty journal clubs occur every five to six weeks on Wednesday evenings. Each journal club focuses on one of the nine subspecialties (adult reconstruction, trauma, pediatrics, hand, foot and ankle, spine, sports medicine, shoulder and elbow, and oncology). The date corresponds with the didactic schedule, with the journal club occurring on the final Wednesday of the respective subspecialty block. Faculty members from that subspecialty will select articles to review.
• Hands-on laboratory sessions – Quarterly, you will have a hands-on laboratory experience during which you can practice different operative techniques — such as fracture reduction and fixation, joint arthroplasty and arthroscopic procedures — on either models or cadaveric specimens. This will include anatomic dissection laboratory sessions as well.
• Resident research presentation – You will select a resident research project to work on longitudinally throughout your training. During PGY2 – 4, you and your fellow residents will present a yearly update on your progress and receive feedback from the faculty. In PGY5, you will present your final research project the June of your fifth year of training.