The General Surgery service currently employs 10 House Officers (including 8 x PGY1s and 2 x PGY2s), 21 Registrars (including 8 senior registrars), 4 Clinical Fellows and 27Senior Medical Officers.
We offer training and non-training positions at the Registrar level.
The medical staff work in a team-based structure with eight teams, each consisting of 2 or 3 x SMOs, 2 x Registrars and 1 x House Officer. Each team covers acute and elective work, based on a four-weekly rotating schedule.
The General Surgery service is an acute and elective-based service with approximately 10000 admissions and 17000 outpatients visits per year. We offer a range of clinical opportunities including operating theatres, pre-admission and outpatient clinics, endoscopy and new trauma service, which is under development. The service is predominantly based at Christchurch Hospital, but some services are also provided at Ashburton, St Georges and Southern Cross Hospitals.
Training – the General Surgery service is accredited with the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS), which provides a specific teaching programme for all Surgical Education Trainees (SET). The CDHB and General Surgery service together with RACS have also signed a Memorandum of Understanding to uphold the Building Respect, Improving Patient Safety programme, which outlines our commitment to the provision of a collaborative and respectful working and learning environment for staff and trainees.
The Senior Medical Officers are also closely associated with the University Department of Surgery from the Otago School of Medicine, with Professor Eglinton as the academic Head of this University Department.
The CDHB and General Surgery service provide the following educational opportunities: regular Continuing Medical Education (CME), journal clubs, Mortality and Morbidity meetings, Multidisciplinary Team Meetings (MDT) - Breast and Endocrine, Colorectal, Hepatobiliary, and Upper GI. These MDT meetings include colleagues from Radiology, Pathology and other clinical teams as appropriate such as Oncology and Palliative Care.
For enquiries please contact
Professor Richard Tapper
Clinical Director, General Surgery, Christchurch Hospital
Email: richard.tapper@cdhb.health.nz
