Curriculum Overview/Rotations

The University of Rochester utilizes a balanced approach to training future cardiothoracic surgeons. The program uses a mixture of both didactic and clinical service educational experiences, to ensure that our graduates are intellectually capable, and technically and emotionally mature surgeons.

Over 2000 index cases are performed each year providing each trainee with the necessary operative experience to become a CT surgeon. The first year is spent building foundational experience in both adult cardiac and thoracic disease. The final year of training culminates in a "chief" year experience with rotations in Adult Cardiac, Adult thoracic and Pediatric cardiac services.  The amount of time on each service over the 2 years is tailored to the future goals of the trainee with more focused time on cardiac surgery for those who plan a future practice in cardiac surgery and more time on thoracic if a general thoracic practice is expected.  The cardiac catheterization lab experience is embedded in the adult cardiac surgery rotation as our cardiac surgeons are actively involved in transcatheter aortic and mitral valves in a collaborative fashion with our interventional cardiology colleagues.