Erie County Medical Center
This 583-bed medical center is one of the area’s leading health care providers. It serves as a regional center for trauma, burns, rehabilitation and cardiac care and is the region’s largest safety-net hospital.
Located on the eastern side of Buffalo, this 583-bed acute care center admits patients from the local urban area, as well as a wide referral range that encompasses all eight counties of Western New York.
ECMC is a verified Level 1 Adult Trauma Center and a regional center for burn care, behavioral health services, transplantation, medical oncology and head & neck cancer care, and rehabilitation.
Case presentations span the range of disease states in internal medicine and general surgery, with many critically ill cases.
Rotations
Erie County Medical Center (ECMC) is a critical part of your residency training. At this rotation site, you’ll build knowledge in areas including:
- complex genitourinary reconstruction
- complicated cases of female urology
- neurourology
- percutaneous renal procedures
- prosthetics
- reconstructive urology
- transgender reassignment
- urodynamics
- urolithiasis
- urologic laparoscopy
- urologic rehabilitation of spinal cord injury patients
Notably, rotating through ECMC will afford you invaluable experience with genitourinary trauma.
PGY-1
At this site you’ll be responsible for initial admission histories and physical exams of all urology and surgery patients and for consultations requested by other services.
With senior residents and our faculty attending physicians, you’ll review findings from evaluations and from laboratory, imaging and other studies, allowing you to gain proficiency and confidence in the diagnosis and management of urologic patients.
During outpatient urology clinics, with the guidance of a faculty member, you’ll gain experience initiating a urologic evaluation. You’ll also learn the importance and techniques of long-term follow up.
We’ll make sure you’re present at all surgical procedures — including open and endoscopic procedures.
During your first year of training, you’ll spend time in the trauma intensive care unit (TICU) at ECMC. Here you’ll gain experience caring for critically ill patients.
We’ll help you develop your knowledge of:
- surgical diseases and their treatments
- indications for operative versus non-operative patients in the trauma setting
- resuscitation and ventilator management
- managing infections and performing bedside procedures
Your time in the TICU will train you to critically evaluate pertinent scientific information and develop an increasing ability to assess the needs of patients in the critical care setting.
You will rotate for a total of five months at ECMC during your first year. For three of those months you’ll undertake rotations in general surgery. The other two months will be urology rotations — with one of the months spent in the TICU.
PGY-2
During second-year rotations at ECMC, you’ll build on skills you developed during your first year. Expect to continue:
- gaining experience taking admission histories
- performing physical exams
- expanding your skills in assimilating information
Training at this site will give you experience being on call for the emergency room, where you will be first to evaluate urologic emergencies.
We’ll train you to round daily on all urology patients, including those for whom urologic consultation has been requested from other hospital services.
As a second-year resident, you’ll scrub in on all open and endoscopic surgical procedures. As you gain proficiency, we’ll allow you to perform, with faculty guidance, increasingly complex portions of surgical and endoscopic procedures.
When patients with spinal cord injuries and neurodegenerative diseases have urologic problems, they are treated here. Therefore, our ECMC training site will give you significant experience treating this patient population.
PGY-4
In your fourth-year rotations at ECMC, you’ll be responsible for the overall management of patients on the urology service, including those for whom urologic consultation has been requested from other hospital services.
With faculty guidance, you’ll hone your ability to perform endoscopic, laparoscopic and open surgical procedures.
You’ll also gain experience supervising and instructing first- and second-year residents.
Our training will expose you to complex female urology cases, including:
- incontinence
- interstitial cystitis
- pelvic floor disorders
- pelvic floor prolapse (anterior and apical component)
- recurrent urinary tract infections
AT ECMC you’ll work with state-of-the-art urodynamic equipment, as well as other diagnostic equipment. Further, rotating through this site will give you valuable experience with the interdisciplinary management of trauma, which emphasizes systems-based practice.
Patient Population
- 55% female
- 45% male
- 15-25% Medicare patients in the ambulatory clinic
- 35% Medicare patients on hospital services
Rotation Duration by Program Year
- PGY-1: 5 months
- PGY-2: 4 months
- PGY-4: 4 months