Head & Neck Fellowship

The goal of the head and neck oncology fellowship at UT Southwestern Medical Center is providing exceptional training to future leaders in head and neck oncologic surgery. The experience is based at the main UT Southwestern Campus which includes, Parkland Memorial Hospital, William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital, and Children's Medical Center. This integrated campus provides the fellow with a wide breadth of experiences that covers all of operative head and neck oncology.

The fellowship program is a part of the multidisciplinary management for head and neck cancer patients which requires working closely with medical oncology and radiation oncology and a wide variety of other clinical and non-clinical services.

Requirements

• Texas Medical License
• Completion of an ACGME-accredited residency in Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, General Surgery, or Plastic Surgery
• Qualification to sit for the American Board of Otolaryngology, Surgery, or Plastic Surgery.

Canadian applicants must have passed or be eligible to sit for the Royal College of Surgeons of Canada Exam.

Operative Experience

There are around 1,000 head and neck procedures performed per year. This includes more than 100 free flap cases with microvascular surgery and 50 TORS procedures. We see over 700 new head and neck cancer patients every year, with close to 3,000 patients being seen yearly after treatment.

The training is in all aspects of head and neck surgery, including ablative surgery, reconstruction, microvascular surgery, Transoral Laser Microsurgery (TLMS), and Transoral Robotic Surgery (TORS) with the da Vinci Surgical Robotic systems (Si and Sp). The training also includes procedures such as complex airway reconstruction, advanced benign tumor resections for schwannoma, paraganglioma, and others, facial nerve re-animation, resection and reconstruction of advanced cutaneous malignancies, techniques in sentinel node biopsy, as well as a large volume of thyroid/parathyroid and salivary gland operations.

Duties and Responsibilities

The fellowship is a clinically oriented 12-month experience with mentorship from the full-time head and neck faculty, and the head and neck disease oriented team at the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center which includes medical oncologists, radiation oncologist, pathologists, and radiologists. The fellow will work at and cover Parkland Memorial Hospital, among the largest teaching hospitals in the nation, and Clements University Hospital, UT Southwestern’s main teaching hospitals. They will participate in outpatient clinics at the Parkland Head and Neck Oncology Clinic and the Head and Neck Clinic at the West Campus Building at UT Southwestern. Rotations will include outpatient clinics with radiation and medical oncology.

Research Opportunities

The fellow is expected to complete a clinical project during the year and submit it for presentation at a national meeting and for the project to be submitted for publication in an impactful peer reviewed journal. The fellow also will participate in prospective clinical trials being conducted at UT Southwestern by the Head and Neck Oncology Team.

Basic science research opportunities are available in the immune landscape and metabolism of tumors, population health research and bioinformatics, cancer imaging, genomics, and proteomics through longstanding collaborations with well-established investigators. With over $11 million in direct funding for head and neck cancer research from the NIH and the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT), ample opportunities for translational collaborations exist.

This is a new program leveraging the unique strengths of UT Southwestern and the tremendous volume and diversity of head and neck oncologic cases treated in our department.

Duties and Responsibilities

The head and neck fellow will participate in all major head and neck cases including TORS, TLMS, and microvascular reconstruction. For more basic head and neck procedures, the fellow will serve as an instructor and teaching surgeon for the UT Southwestern otolaryngology residents.

The program is rotation based, with the fellow being assigned to specific teams of faculty for rotating blocks of time. Given the volume of surgery, the fellow will have the opportunity to select cases best aligned with their training goals.

The fellow will work closely with the supervising attending surgeons on major surgical cases. Continuity of oncologic care and complete management of the patients will be emphasized with the fellow being involved in the initial consults, preoperative visits, tumor board discussions, and postoperative care and tumor surveillance of the patients.

Fellows will be in clinic two half days per week. They will participate in the weekly head and neck multidisciplinary tumor conference, weekly head and neck didactic sessions, all head and neck grand rounds and journal clubs, and the monthly head and neck prospective clinical trial planning meeting.

Supervision, Teaching, and Call

The fellow will be supervised by faculty for complex head and neck cases, with greater independence and responsibility over the course of the year. He or she will supervise and teach residents in clinic at Parkland and in the operating room for appropriate cases. The fellow also will share faculty call on a rotating weekly basis, averaging 1 week/7-9 weeks.