Faculty & Fellows Responsibilities

The vascular surgical team consists of 8 full-time vascular surgery attendings with 2 vascular fellows, and a complement of general surgery residents (including 1 chief resident) who, in daily activities, provide services to vascular patients in a variety of settings including the standard operating room(s), the hybrid operating room, angiographic suite(s), clinic, and an endovascular access lab, all with coverage and supervision provided by experienced vascular surgery staff. In each daily service-oriented location, at minimum, a single vascular surgery staff is present to provide care and supervise any fellowship activity. Each fellow is assigned to, dependent upon the complexity of the operation/procedure, one of the above areas where the appropriate vascular surgical care is rendered. Each patient, whether in the clinic or in the inpatient environment, is assigned a vascular staff physician who is ultimately the physician-in-charge (from a vascular perspective). Thus, no resident/fellow service, either inpatient or outpatient, exists.

Rounds are also made each day by the specific assigned vascular surgery attending, corroborating, confirming, or augmenting the care that was instituted by the morning resident or fellow-led team. As this occurs in a busy tertiary care hospital, both elective and emergent coverage of vascular surgical care is provided. At all times (off-hours, weekends) one of the 6 vascular surgery staff is immediately available by phone, pager, or in person as the situation demands and in accordance with the call schedule.

Faculty responsibilities include:

1. Direct responsibility for individual patient care and outcome.
2. All patients evaluated in the clinic setting are seen and evaluated with the ultimate management decision rendered by the vascular surgical staff.
3. Supervision, guidance, and education of the vascular surgery fellows in the appropriate utilization of fluoroscopic equipment in the varied settings of applied fluoroscopy.
4. Supervision, guidance, and education in the performance and practice of endovascular procedures to allow acquisition of fellow’s endovascular skill set.
5. Supervision, guidance, and education in the performance of open operative procedures recognizing that the fellows as PGY6 and PGY7 residents have completed a general surgical residency and are familiar with many of the basic surgical techniques to allow for exposure and eventual acquisition of the knowledge and ability to perform of larger complex open vascular surgical reconstructions.
6. Supervision and guidance with the performance of day-to day procedures including long-term catheter placement, vascular access, standard angiography with the allowance of progressive performance and responsibility.
7. Geographic availability (as per the call schedule) by phone, pager, or in person for emergent consultation with coverage of all emergent operative or major endovascular procedures.
8. Evaluation with confirmation and delineation of patient care action for all non-emergent consultations within a 24-hour period.
9. Availability for any concern, question, or issue related to patient care or concern.