Affiliates and Partnerships

Huntington Hospital serves as the primary teaching facility for our general surgery residency program. General Surgery at Huntington Hospital consists of vascular, oncologic, gastrointestinal, thoracic, endocrine, pediatric, colorectal surgery, trauma, and surgical critical care. In addition we have affiliated hospitals which play an important role in the surgical residency, including Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (pediatrics) and USC University Hospital (transplantation). A major strength of the surgical residency program is the excellent clinical experience at the Huntington Ambulatory Care Center and the private offices of our teaching faculty. Residents evaluate over 1200 patients per year in the Huntington Ambulatory Care Center. There are approximately 12,000 operations done annually in the 15 inpatient operating rooms at Huntington Hospital. In addition, as part of a joint venture between Huntington Memorial Hospital and San Gabriel Valley physicians, the Huntington Ambulatory Surgery Center (HASC) is now open, and is a state-of-the-art outpatient surgery center offering the latest advances in surgical technology with six fully accredited outpatient surgery suites

The patient population is both numerous and diverse. Surgical patients may be admitted to Huntington Hospital through the Huntington Ambulatory Care Center, which is run by residents and supervised by teaching faculty. They may also be admitted by surgeons on the teaching staff, who are either in private practice or from one of the local clinics near the hospital. In addition, there is currently a busy Emergency Department and a Level II Trauma Center. Our Emergency Department is in the process of an expansion project, which, when finished, will add 20,000 square feet to the ED and nearly double its capacity to provide emergency patient care.

The training program is one of graduated responsibility, designed to provide the residents with comprehensive knowledge of basic and clinical surgical science, excellence in patient assessment and management, with superb operative experience. The operative experience of Huntington's surgical residents is excellent. We have limited case numbers to 700-1000 to allow residents to gain extensive experience in teaching, research, and group presentation. Residents completing this program have an exceptional record of achieving Board-certification within the past 6 years. The training is intended to develop a thoroughly competent professional surgeon able to practice highly developed general surgery upon completion of the program. A number of graduates have decided to stay at Huntington Hospital in group/private practice (2 in the past 5 years) and some pursue fellowships such as vascular surgery and minimally invasive surgery (3 in the past 5 years).

The residents are supervised by the Program Director and by the teaching faculty. The teaching faculty is comprised of selected members of the surgical staff of Huntington Hospital. The teaching staff consists of prominent surgical specialists, each of whom have excellent qualifications, training and knowledge. Approximately one half of the teaching staff have full time faculty appointments at the USC/Keck School of Medicine, and only one half of the general surgeons on staff at Huntington Hospital are members of the teaching service.

Continuity of care is of utmost importance at Huntington Hospital and we strive to improve the residency program and the hospital by asking the outpatients to complete surveys and evaluations on the house officers to help us better identify ways that we can improve our communication, professionalism and appropriate follow up.

The Transplant Program at USC University Hospital provides residents with experience in both renal, liver and pancreas transplantation. A PGY-II rotation at Children's Hospital of Los Angeles, which is for a period of one to three months, is directed by Henri Ford, M.D. the Surgeon-in-Chief. This experience provides additional exposure to congenital defects, complex management problems and operative experience.