Hospitals to jointly train doctors

Surgical residents at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston will receive some of their training at Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester, under an affiliation agreement announced today. Beginning in July, Beth Israel Deaconess surgical residents will start monthly rotations at Saint Vincent, where they will work side by side with Saint Vincent’s 75 other residents in cardiology, internal medicine, podiatry and radiology.

The rotation will provide Beth Israel Deaconess surgical residents with ``solid exposure to the range of patients and medical problems common to the practice of surgery in a major community hospital,'' Saint Vincent said in a press release.

“In today’s health care environment it is critical to prepare surgical residents to care for patients in a variety of settings, including busy community hospitals, where many residents will choose to practice in the future,” said Dr. Josef Fischer, chief of surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess, which is a Harvard Medical School teaching affiliate.

The agreement comes one year after the University of Massachusetts Medical School and its clinical affiliate, UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, said they were cutting their surgical residency programs at Saint Vincent in a move that was seen as a competitive strike at Saint Vincent.
(By Christopher Rowland, Globe staff)