General Surgery Student Conference is attended by the residents, students and faculty on pediatric surgery, elective surgery, acute care surgery, and surgical oncology.  This weekly conference consists of the presentation of a patient with an interesting or illustrative disease. The patient is presented by the resident involved in their care and discussed by the students, residents, and attending surgeons on the service.  The discussion includes the development of a detailed differential diagnosis and algorithms for diagnosis and management.  A resident is required to search the literature and discuss at the conference a high-quality article on the topic. This is a multi-disciplinary conference that involves general surgeons as well as a radiologist and a gastroenterologist.

Tumor Board is a weekly multidisciplinary conference attended by members of the surgery, medical oncology, radiation oncology, pathology, and radiology departments.  This includes our 1^st, 2nd, and senior surgery residents, the 3^rd and 4^th year medical students, as well as by oncology fellows.  In addition, ancillary services including genetic counselors, social workers, and oncology nurses are present to allow for contribution to the comprehensive care of cancer patients.  Operative cases are presented by a surgery resident.  The appropriate imaging studies, histology slides, and treatment protocols are discussed in detail by the attending staff, surgery residents, and oncology fellows.  Since the tumor board list is available prior to the conference, the surgery team is expected to be knowledgeable of the cases, thus, ensuring the ensuing discussion be an educational discourse.

Surgical Oncology Journal Club is a periodic event held by the Division of Surgical Oncology and covers the topics of colon cancer, rectal cancer, melanoma, sarcoma, esophageal cancer, gastric cancer, breast malignancies, and pancreatic cancer in a block of eight weeks to be repeated throughout the academic year.  Each surgery resident presents a paper selected by the faculty member and analyzes the merits and limitations of the study.  While students are in attendance and participate by asking questions, the journal club is geared for residents to help them understand the rationale for the current standard of care and the limitations thereof.

Vascular Conference is a weekly conference attended by the residents and faculty on the Vascular Surgery Service. The conference begins with a case presentation by a surgical resident and discussion led by the Chief of the Division of Vascular Surgery. This is followed by a lecture on a topic relevant to Vascular Surgery delivered by the Chief of the Division of Vascular Surgery.

Trauma/Critical Care Journal Club is a monthly conference for Trauma and Critical Care faculty, nurses, residents, and medical students. With the purpose of keeping staff, residents ,and students abreast of new literature and developments in the field, three to four articles are discussed and critiqued every month.

SICU Multi-Disciplinary Conference is a weekly conference attended by faculty, residents rotating on SICU, respiratory therapists, wound care personnel, case management, physical therapists, nurses, and social workers. An in-depth discussion is conducted of SICU patients' cases to plan the methodology of their health care management.

Trauma/Critical Care & PICU Grand Rounds is held monthly and is attended by approximately 50 participants from hospitals in the state hospital network who call in to connect to this video conference.

Trauma M&M Conference is a weekly conference attended by faculty, residents, students, and nurses on the service. Similar to the departmental M&M conference, trauma complication, deaths, and interesting cases are discussed. Residents and students are educated on new protocols and procedures, and residents are free to discuss problems on the service.

Plastics & Reconstructive Surgery Grand Rounds is a monthly conference attended by Plastics, Vascular, and Burns services. A question and answer session follows a 30-minute presentation of a topic of interest by a resident.

Trauma Book Club is a conference attended by the PGY 2 residents to discuss trauma/surgical critical care items.

Research Meetings:  PGY 1 through PGY 4 residents present an annual research project in April and May at the departmental grand rounds conferences.

Ochsner LSU Health Shreveport Academic Medical Center is a state-of-the-art Level 1 Trauma Center, a 452-bed acute care hospital that provides tertiary care to patients from throughout Louisiana, east Texas, and southwest Arkansas, providing a full spectrum of adult and pediatric cases. With more than 20,000 admissions, 500,000 outpatients visits, and in excess of 12,000 operations per year, the hospital provides our residents exposure to patients requiring basic and tertiary general surgical care, as well as a comprehensive operative and educational experience in all of the requisite defined categories. In addition, residents acquire a high volume of trauma, non-operative trauma, and surgical critical care experience during their training at this hospital.

Ochsner LSU Health Shreveport in Monroe provides surgical care to northeast Louisiana. Surgical residents obtain graduated levels of responsibility for the care of patients based on level of training and experience. Faculty supervise all levels of care. Complex surgical care is provided in the areas of general, vascular and non-cardiac chest surgery. With an annual surgical volume of approximately 2250 cases, rotation at this facility provides residents with exposure to patients outside the usual catchment area for the primary site. Residents acquire experience in pre-operative evaluations, operative cases, post-operative care. This allows a continuum for residents to follow patients from initial visit to resolution of the problem while being supervised by faculty.

At Willis-Knighton Medical Center Residents are exposed to complex surgical experience in the private sector, including kidney, liver, and pancreas transplantation, dialysis access, endocrine, and hepaticopancreaticobiliary procedures.

Under the guidance of surgical faculty, the Overton Brooks Veterans Affairs Medical Center provides residents with surgical experience from the outpatient setting through the illness/surgery, until recovery is complete. This hospital serves veterans from LA, east Texas and southwest Arkansas. Surgical residents interact with the faculty and residents from a full spectrum of medical specialties. Graduated levels of responsibility, under the supervision of the general surgery faculty is in the areas of general surgery, thoracic surgery, and vascular surgery. Over 800 surgical procedures are performed at this hospital annually. The rotation exposes residents to a diverse population of ages and diseases. Young and healthy patients are treated, but many of the patients are elderly with significant co-morbidities.