Academic Overview

The Urology Residency Program at the Department of Urology is currently a six-year program starting with a one-year internship followed by four years of clinical urology, and one research year. The clinical years consist of rotations at the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, NewYork-Presbyterian/The Allen Hospital, NewYork-Presbyterian/Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital, the James J. Peters Bronx VA Medical Center, and NewYork-Presbyterian/Lawrence Hospital.

The rotation schedule is generally divided into several blocks throughout the year. In total, each resident completes 12 months as a chief resident on an adult urology service and four months as a chief resident in pediatric urology.

Rotations

PGY 1/URO 1

  • General Surgery, NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia
  • Urology/NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia 

PGY 2/URO 2

  • NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia
  • Float

PGY 3/URO 3

  • James J. Peters Bronx VA Medical Center
  • NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia
  • NewYork-Presbyterian/Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital
  • Float

PGY 4/Lab

  • Research

PGY 5/URO 4

  • NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia
  • NewYork-Presbyterian/Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital – chief resident on service – NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia Transplant Service
  • NewYork-Presbyterian/Lawrence Hospital

PGY 6/URO 5

  • NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia – chief resident on service
  • NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia Transplant service
  • James J. Peters Bronx VA Medical Center – chief resident on service
  • Elective

Program Goals

The Department of Urology at Columbia University is committed to providing a high quality resident education program through a carefully created educational program that enables residents to become proficient in the physical examination and diagnosis of patient with progressively increasing responsibility and autonomy in the non-operative and operative management of patients throughout the six year program. The primary goals are to:

  • Produce residents who are competent, caring, and technically proficient physicians.
  • Develop urologists with an outstanding fund of medical knowledge, impeccable clinical judgment, and premier surgical proficiency.

These goals are attained by ensuring residents are:

  • Proficient and confident in performing a urologic history and physical examination, achieving a diagnosis, and formulating and executing a treatment plan for adult and pediatric patients with genitourinary disorders, in outpatient, inpatient, and consultation settings.
  • Proficient with technical skills in the operating room in the surgical management of genitourinary disorders and who demonstrate increasing autonomy from one year to the next. At the conclusion of the residency, the resident will be expected to be able to perform urologic surgery competently and independently.
  • Leaders who can oversee a multidisciplinary team of allied health care workers including nurses, social workers, physical therapists and nutritionists, and who understand their role and contribution to patient care.
  • Proficient in writing prescriptions for appropriate pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, and equipment.
  • Proficient in directly supervising and teaching fellow residents and medical students.
  • Proficient in acquiring the skill set to research scholarly sources for the purposes of presenting a topic to be of educational value to other medical staff and to enhance patient care.
  • Committed to providing excellent clinical care with proper and ethical behavior and have a strong sense of personal responsibility to patients.
  • Specialized physicians capable of pursuing urology board certification.

The Department of Urology at VP&S

Urologists at Columbia perform surgery in PPE
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