Hello.
My name is Faisal Aziz, and I'm the Program Director
for Penn State Hershey Vascular Surgery Residency Program.
I must admit that it feels a bit awkward to introduce my program
in a recorded message, however unfortunately,
due to current pandemic, we are going
to conduct all the interviews virtually this year.
And hence, the need for this video.
I am thankful to you for listening
to the next few minutes, and knowing more about our program.
There are three focuses for our program.
Number one is clinical excellence.
Number two is research efforts.
And number 3 is our education.
And all these factors are tied in.
And our goal is to make sure that we train vascular surgeons
who are not only able to operate,
but can also do research if they want to.
And also are able to teach if they choose an academic career.
Our program is a five year integrated vascular surgery
program.
I'm very proud to share that during the course of past ten
years, there are five graduates from our program.
And I'm also very proud to say that all of our graduates
have passed their routine exams for American Board of Surgery,
as well as their oral board exams for American
Board of Surgery in the first attempt on the first time.
Penn State Hershey Medical Center
is a large academic Medical Center in central Pennsylvania.
Most of the rotations for the Vascular Surgery Residency
Program will be based at the main campus at Hershey.
In addition to endovascular operations,
one thing particularly about our program
is the focus on the open vascular surgery operations
as well.
We're fortunate to have a hybrid operating
room where we can perform both endovascular
and open surgical operations.
In addition, our vascular surgeons
also operate in the Cardiac Cath Lab
for endovascular interventions.
Some of the reasons why I was interested in joining Penn
State Residency Program was the range and variety
of cases that are being performed, whether it be open
complex cases, as well as endovascular.
We have an amazing operative experience.
You're going to want to have as many open cases as possible.
And I think this is one of those locations that
still offers that experience.
That's what you really want to be seeing.
You want to be seeing the worst, the most difficult cases,
the most complex cases, and be an active participant in taking
care of those patients.
They really give us pride in what we do,
and they make it worth it coming in every day conquering
these tough cases with them.
And teaching them is great.
And I'd have to say my greatest achievements are
a number of graduates have gone on to numerous practices.
And having them tell me and call me about the cases
they've done, it gives me a sense of pride
that they've been able to tackle these difficult and complex
cases through our training.
In terms of educational setup for the program,
we have weekly educational conferences.
Twice a year we hold a cadaver day,
in which the residents, along with the medical students,
able to expose the vascular surgery anatomy on cadavers.
We're one of the very few programs
which offers cadaver dissection programs in the country.
We're also very proud to host clinical research
program in our division.
Residents are encouraged to participate in divisions
research activities.
There are many publications mostly based
on the outcomes based research, and the residents
are heavily encouraged to participate in these research
projects.
Most of our graduated residents have graduated
with multiple publications.
We are the largest vascular surgery group
in the central Pennsylvania.
We have seven vascular surgeons at the main campus,
and we have three vascular surgeons
at the community sites, which are a part of our group.
Interestingly, all seven of us were
trained in different programs.
All of us have a little bit different techniques
for doing operations, and hence it's
an amazing opportunity for the residents
to know different ways of doing the operations.
It does function as a team, which
is a nice feeling, nice place to work, a nice environment.
Working with my residents has been a great experience.
Everybody from graduating, all my chiefs,
to seeing the interns grow and become now fourth years
has been a really rewarding experience.
If you choose our program, I can assure you
that you will graduate as a confident and competent
vascular surgeon who is ready to go
in either an academic career, or a community practice based
on your preferences.
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