Brian Hoey, MD
Program Director

Surgery is organized into the Blue Service and the White Service

The Department of Surgery is organized around two primary teaching surgical services – the Blue Service and the White Service. These services include general surgery, colorectal surgery, pediatric surgery, vascular surgery and non-cardiac thoracic surgery. Residents are exposed to these disciplines each year. Each service is headed by a chief resident. The residents are responsible for the care of patients on their service, under the supervision of the chief resident and the attending faculty surgeons. During their five years, residents also rotate on critical care, cardiac surgery, GI-endoscopy, thoracic surgery, trauma surgery, transplantation surgery, plastic surgery, neurosurgery, orthopedic surgery, urology and anesthesia. Residents also spend one month learning ultrasound techniques and how they apply to the surgical patient.

Residents participate in a full spectrum of open and minimally invasive surgical procedures including robotically-assisted surgery. St. Luke’s University Hospital – Bethlehem Campus was the first hospital in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to perform surgical procedures using the daVinci Robotics Surgical System.

Residents are expected to attend office hours with individual faculty members and to see patients in the weekly surgery clinics. More than 17,000 procedures are performed each year in the operating room. Medical students from Temple University School of Medicine, the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine rotate on the surgical services. Students from other institutions rotate on electives on the surgical services at St. Luke’s Hospital. Residents play an important role in the education of the medical students.

More than 80 percent of our graduating residents have gone on to fellowships in colorectal surgery (Brown University, Creighton University, Lehigh Valley Hospital), CT surgery (Baylor University, Tufts University), trauma and critical care (Vanderbilt University, University of Pennsylvania, Orlando Regional Medical Center), plastic surgery (Mayo Clinic, Temple University, LIJNS), surgical oncology (Medical College of Virginia), hand surgery (Hospital for Special Surgery - Cornell Medical Center, University of Pittsburgh), transplant surgery (University of Pittsburgh) and vascular surgery (Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, Geisinger Medical Center). Other residents have entered private surgical practice.