WILMINGTON, N.C. - New Hanover Regional Medical Center’s Surgery Residency Program is celebrating 50 years of continuous operation since it began in 1965 at James Walker Memorial Hospital. The program moved to New Hanover Memorial Hospital, now NHRMC, when James Walker Memorial closed in 1967.
The program started as a two-year residency for surgeons and was part of a statewide effort to increase the number of doctors in North Carolina’s rural areas. That effort eventually became the South East Area Health Education Center under the auspices of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which has managed the Surgery Residency Program for NHRMC since the 1973.
James Walker Memorial’s Director of Surgery Lockert B. Mason, MD, worked with the UNC School of Medicine to establish a surgery residency program that was eventually expanded to a four-year program in 1971. The program is now a five-year residency and the 50th class is scheduled to graduate on June 19.
“Training surgeons for five decades in Wilmington is a testament to the long-term commitment our medical community at NHRMC has to ensuring surgical residents get the highest standard of experience and education,” said Surgery Residency Program Director Thomas V. Clancy, MD.
The surgery faculty of the residency program is notable for the background, training and experience of its members. Full-time faculty includes attending surgeons all of whom hold appointments in the Department of Surgery at the UNC School of Medicine. Their primary responsibility is resident education. Surgeons in the private community constitute the remaining faculty, all of whom are based at NHRMC.
For more information, visit
www.nhrmcsurgeryresidency.com.