Elite US residency program directors visit WCM-Q

Residency program directors from leading US teaching hospitals and academic health centers visited Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar (WCM-Q) to learn about the curriculum, view the college’s state-of-the-art facilities and offer career development advice to students.

Held annually, the Visiting Professorship Program (VPP) was established in 2013 to help residency program directors become acquainted with WCM-Q as an elite medical school that produces highly competent physician-scientists who are extremely well prepared to enter residency training locally at Hamad Medical Corporation or overseas at world-class academic healthcare institutions. The student-focused VPP is held over two days and gives students the chance to explore medical career options and benefit from the expertise of the visiting professors by asking questions about preparation for residency training and the applications process.

This year’s program welcomed 11 program directors to WCM-Q from some of the most highly regarded healthcare and education institutions in the US, including Weill Cornell Medicine, NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, the DeWitt Daughtry Family Department of Surgery at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, the University of Pittsburgh Department of Surgery, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, (UTHealth Houston), Boston Medical Center, UMass Chan Medical School, Tufts University School of Medicine/Lahey Hospital & Medical Center, and University of Minnesota Medical Center/Smiley’s Family Medicine Clinic.

The visiting professors are directors of residency programs specialized in internal medicine, surgery, psychiatry, physical medicine and rehabilitation, anesthesiology, and family medicine/ambulatory care.

During their visit to WCM-Q the program directors met with students, gave keynote presentations, and held Q&A sessions to discuss the residency application process and offer advice on how to thrive once enrolled in a program. Students showcased their abilities by giving case presentations in surgery, internal medicine and psychiatry, as well as presenting research posters to the visiting professors.

One of the visiting professors was Dr. Amy L. Halverson, professor of surgery and medical education and vice chair of education in the Department of Surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Dr. Halverson, who is also program director of the general surgery residency at Northwestern, said: “It has been wonderful to visit Qatar and WCM-Q, to see the impressive facilities here, and to meet outstanding faculty members and extremely bright, highly motivated students. We have been made extremely welcome and it has been very exciting to have the chance to build strong relationships between healthcare institutions in the US and WCM-Q, which can do a great deal to support the advance of medicine globally.”

WCM-Q’s Dr. Thurayya Arayssi, professor of clinical medicine and vice dean for academic and curricular affairs, said: “We are very pleased to be able to welcome such esteemed professors from some of the world’s best academic healthcare institutions to WCM-Q. Our students benefit a great deal from the knowledge and expertise of the visiting professors as they plan their career paths and commit themselves to gaining the skills and experience to deliver truly world-class patient care.”