Our goal is to provide a comprehensive educational curriculum to enable our residents to acquire the foundation necessary to practice evidence-based Cardiothoracic Surgery and prepare residents for the American Board of Thoracic Surgery Certification.  Providing residents with academic backgrounds in clinical, basic science, and translational research opportunities will prepare trainees for a career in academic surgery and private practice.  

Program Highlights

  • Train at three major clinical sites that provide exposure to a wide variety of patients in different clinical settings:
    • Loma Linda University Medical Center
    • Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital: major tertiary academic hospital with 364 beds.
    • Jerry L. Pettis Memorial Veterans' Hospital
  • One resident at each level of training
  • High volume of cardiac cases
  • One national conference and one training course per resident per year
  • Annual $1,000 educational stipend

Program Components

Facilities

Rotations are based at Loma Linda University Medical Center, Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital, and the VA Loma Linda Healthcare System. 

Loma Linda University Medical Center is associated with Loma Linda University School of Medicine and is located approximately 70 miles east of Los Angeles and 40 miles west of Palm Springs, California.

Loma Linda University Medical Center

Our new 16-story hospital is a 650-bed facility with state-of-the-art laboratories, echocardiogram, and advanced imaging facilities. The medical center serves an area roughly equal to 25% of the state of California. The center commonly receives patients with unusual or complicated medical conditions as a tertiary care facility. There is an active medicine service, cancer center, intensive care unit, and coronary care unit.

Loma Linda University Children's Hospital

Our Children's Hospital has 364 beds, over 10,000 annual admissions and about 80,000 annual outpatient visits. Ours is the only children's hospital in the region.

VA Loma Linda Healthcare System

The Jerry L. Pettis Memorial Veterans' Hospital is a 560-bed facility just a few blocks from our medical center. Serving more than 60,000 veterans, residents have a valuable opportunity to participate in diverse patient care experiences through inpatient, outpatient, and home care programs.

Operative Experience

Residents in our program are afforded a rich, hands-on operative experience, enabling them to meet and typically exceed minimum case log requirements easily.  Our trainees perform cardiac surgical procedures, including coronary artery bypass, valve repair, VAD placement, heart transplantation, and other complex procedures for adult and pediatric heart conditions.  Trainees also acquire ample and well-rounded operative experience in thoracic surgery.

Rotations

PGY Cardiothoracic Rotations  Generay Surgery Rotations
1

6 Months: Thoracic Surgery, Cardiac Surgery, CT Anesthesia/ECHO, Congenital, CTICU 

6 Months: Vascular Surgery, Surgical Oncology, Plastic Surgery, ACS/Trauma, GI Surgery
2 7 Months: Cardiac Surgery, Thoracic Surgery, CT Anesthesia/ECHO, CTICU, Electrophysiology 5 Months: Transplant, GI Surgery, ACS/Trauma, Peds Surgery
3 6 Months: Thoracic Surgery, Interventional Pulmonology/Thoracic, Cardiac Surgery, Interventional Cardiology 6 Months: Vascular Surgery, ACS/Trauma, GI Surgery, ENT
4-6 12 Months: Cardiac Surgery, Thoracic Surgery, IV Procedures/TAVR