Course description

The Year 3 Surgery (Honours) rotation is devoted to General Surgery (Breast / Endocrine, Upper Gastrointestinal, Hepatopancreatobiliary, Colorectal, Trauma & Acute surgery) and some subspecialties including Burns & Plastics, Urology, Vascular, Neurosurgery and Cardiothoracic Surgery. The aim of the rotation is to familiarise students with common, serious and life threatening surgical diseases and for students to develop an understanding of how they present clinically; how to systematically evaluate these conditions; how to investigate them; principles of management; how to assess priorities for treatment; and when and how to initiate referral. The rotation is not intended to train students as technical surgeons but to develop students that are 'intern ready' who can function as part of a surgical team. Students are allocated to surgical units to participate in the daily activities of those units and to participate in all that happens during their patients' episode of care. Students should also attend outpatients, ward rounds, operating theatre and other unit meetings. Learning resources include a series of Core Lectures (available from Blackboard). A tutorial program is conducted at individual teaching hospitals. Students are provided lists of recommended operations and investigations to observe and a list of Surgical skills for which they should develop competence and understanding. Students undertake an Honours Research Project (25%) as well as the Year 3 Surgery rotation (75%).

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