Plastic Surgery Fellowship

Thank you for your interest in Plastic Surgery training at Henry Ford Hospital. The training environment at Henry Ford capitalizes on a large clinical volume, excellent faculty, and broad research capabilities to provide exceptional training opportunities.

Henry Ford Hospital, founded in 1915, is one of the nation's leading comprehensive health systems, providing primary and specialty care services. The system is anchored by Henry Ford Hospital, a 903-bed tertiary care hospital in Detroit's New Center Area. Henry Ford Hospital, an American College of Surgeons designated Level 1 trauma center, has a large multi-disciplinary trauma program with over 1500 admissions per year, and receives a higher percentage of penetrating injuries than the national average. The campus also houses extensive education and research facilities where more than 1,700 research projects are under way.

U.S. News & World Report ranks Henry Ford Hospital as one of the best hospitals in America and ranks 10 of its specialties as among the best in the nation. The health system records more than 2.5 million patient visits annually at the main hospital, three other Henry Ford-owned hospitals, and at 23 Henry Ford medical centers.

The Division of Plastic Surgery is part of the Department of Surgery, long-time leader in education, research, and clinical care. Henry Ford Hospital surgeons pioneered open heart surgery, vascular surgery, oxygen therapy, and transplantation. In addition, the Department of Surgery has partnered with NASA to conduct medical research on the International Space Station and the only program in the world which is developing advanced ultrasound and laparoscopic techniques for the space program.

Brief overview

Our program was started 5 years ago and is a fully accredited 3-year, independent program with an extensive clinical volume and strong research base. We accept one trainee per year. Henry Ford Health, founded in 1915, is anchored by a 903 bed Level-One Trauma facility with a very wide tertiary referral base for all clinical entities. Our faculty brings many years of diverse experience to the program and is integrally involved with the development of the Henry Ford Hospital Breast Center. The institution has a long history of research and continues to actively support those endeavors.

Clinical care

The Division of Plastic Surgery has a huge, varied clinical volume for resident education. The patient experience includes an intense urban caseload, ambulatory surgery and suburban health care. We see about 24,000 clinic visits per year and about 2,100 operative cases in clinic and OR combined. We are actively involved with both the Henry Ford Cancer Institute and the newly form HFH Breast Center. This gives a balanced exposure to all aspects of plastic surgery, with craniofacial and burn surgery rotations being at the Detroit Medical Center nearby.

Residency training

The Henry Ford Hospital Plastic Surgery Residency is fully accredited by the ACGME. Our trainees are well-equipped to handle the rigors of independent practice. We have 1 training spot per year for our 3-year program. We have an 8-person faculty group, all whom have been here over 10 years and many with subspecialty interests within plastic surgery. Pediatric and Craniofacial exposure is a 3-month rotation at Children’s Hospital of Michigan.

Henry Ford Hospital is a primary rotation site for 3rd and 4th year medical students from Wayne State University. Medical student education is an important component of the plastic surgery independent residency program. The residents and students attend numerous educational sessions that are tailored around the PSEN lecture series. Duty hours are logged weekly on a web-based program to allow real-time monitoring of service workloads. We are a low-risk specialty and have never violated Duty Hours.

We have access to one of the largest and most advanced simulation centers in the country at Henry Ford Hospital. The center for Simulation, Education and Research is a 12,500 sq. ft. dedicated facility with state of the art procedural simulators to complement hands-on training. It dovetails nicely with the Innovation Center, uniquely designed to integrate clinical innovation with local resources for product development. The cadaver and micro labs round out the preparatory experience.

Research and training environment

Henry Ford Hospital is truly an academic environment. There are more than 80 full-time senior staff scientists who receive more than $50 million a year in extramural grant funding. Studies sponsored by pharmaceutical companies total about $7 million per year. The research laboratories are housed in two research buildings (Benson Ford Education and Research Building and One Ford Place) in more than 156,000-sq. ft. of research space. In addition to external grants, dedicated support for research comes from a large ($150 million) endowment.

Dr. Aamir Siddiqui, is a nationally known Wound Care specialist with multiple ongoing projects. Our association with the Bariatric Surgery Center at Henry Ford Hospital provides clinical experience for multiple body contouring and breast reconstruction outcome studies by Dr. Donna Tepper and Dr. Vigen Darian. There is financial support for individual resident initiated studies as well.

In closing

The choice of a plastic surgery residency program is an important decision. The optimal training program for a plastic surgeon combines an excellent clinical volume, exceptional faculty, high quality educational activities, and research opportunities to provide a graded, comprehensive training environment. The residency program must also be the right fit for the trainees to complement their unique skills and requirements. We feel the Division of Plastic Surgery at Henry Ford Hospital has the right combination for a balanced plastic surgery training. We look forward to providing additional information through our webpage and the interview process.

Best of Luck in your career plans,

Vigen B. Darian, M.D., F.A.C.S.
Program Director
Henry Ford Hospital/Wayne State University School of Medicine, Plastic Surgery Residency Program
Director, Cleft and Craniofacial Surgery
Service Chief, Plastic Surgery
Henry Ford Hospital West Bloomfield