Established in 1852, Mercy Hospital and Medical Center is Chicago’s first hospital. Its mission is to provide a broad spectrum of health care services accessible to the people in the communities it serves. A major part of our mission is served through the Mercy Family Health Center, the second largest Federally Qualified Health Center in Chicago. Here physicians are exposed to a diverse-high-risk patient population and a clinical experience that is second to none.

Unique to our surgical residency, Mercy offers rotations in breast surgery with an office ultrasound experience and advanced laparoscopy. Dr. Colleen Hagen, Surgical Director of Mercy’s Breast Center, has extensive experience with office ultrasound and operates on over one hundred breast cancer patients each year. The cardiovascular thoracic rotation provides the only cardiac surgery experience in the program balanced with thoracic, peripheral vascular and endovascular surgery. All rotations easily incorporate the resident in the pre-operative and post-operative management of the patient as the surgeon’s private offices are directly attached to the hospital.

Mercy, however, is best known among the surgical residents for its tradition of didactic teaching. Morning report is held from 7AM-8AM Monday through Friday. Starting with a morbidity and mortality conference on Monday, attendings run these conferences covering topics in advanced laparoscopy, basic science, cardiovascular thoracic surgery and critical care over the course of the week. In addition to these conferences, CME level conferences with mandatory attendance include; a weekly cancer conference, a monthly breast conference, a monthly combined medical/surgical critical care conference and a bimonthly combined medical/surgical gastrointestinal disease conference. Our goal as teachers is to prompt our residents to ask good questions, debate with literature, espouse concepts over constructs and find out what they do not know.