Residency Training
West Virginia University's Department of Otolaryngology provides resident physicians with a well-rounded and comprehensive training experience in Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. Our program has been accredited by the ACGME since 1966. The strength of our program stems from our exceptionally dedicated teaching faculty under the leadership of our Chairman, Dr. Hassan H. Ramadan, who has been with our institution since 1990 and has an international reputation in pediatric otolaryngology, diseases of the nose and sinuses, and endoscopic sinus surgery.
We currently have 20 full-time faculty members, representing all sub-specialty areas of Otolaryngology, and fully committed to high quality surgical education. As an added benefit, we have no Otolaryngology fellowship programs at WVU. This means our residents are the first-line care-givers for cases which might typically be assigned to fellows-in-training at other institutions. As a result, our residents receive comprehensive training in the full spectrum of otolaryngology/head and neck surgery.
Our program’s graduates have gone on to a variety of careers, spanning academic to private practice, as well as fellowship training. In recent years our trainees have been accepted for fellowship training at such esteemed locations as: Stanford, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, University of Pittsburgh, Children's National Medical Center, University of Kansas, University of Nashville, House Ear Institute in Los Angeles, Vanderbilt University, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Hospital, Medical University of South Carolina, Ohio State University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Miami, University of Connecticut, and at University of Illinois at Chicago. Our graduates have also earned faculty positions in academic programs at University of Colorado, the University of Alabama, University of Indiana, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson, Roswell Park Cancer institute at Buffalo NY, and here at WVU.
Our rotation schedule includes core rotations through all major surgical subspecialities with most of the training located at Ruby Memorial Hospital, which is a state-of-the-art,700 bed, level 1 trauma center hospital, located in Morgantown, WV. In 2021, WVU Medicine Golisano Children’s Hospital opened it’s 119 bed hospital which is attached to Ruby Memorial which is used for inpatient and surgical care. Our out-patient clinic, located in the Physician’s Office Center, (adjacent to Ruby Memorial Hospital), is equipped with all of the latest nasal endoscopes, flexible and rigid laryngoscopes, a voice lab, video stroboscopy equipment, and auditory and vestibular testing.. Additional in-patient and out-patient clinical sites associated with our training program are l The Veterans Hospital located in Clarksburg, WV, where our residents rotate for four months in their third year of training, and Uniontown Hospital, in Uniontown, PA, where our senior residents may elect to rotate in order to gain experience in community-based outpatient surgical cases. Both off-site locations are within 45 minutes of Morgantown.
As an added bonus, West Virginia University, and more specifically our Department of Otolaryngology, is proud to boast an active and productive Research Division. Our residents benefit from our many research opportunities during their entire training program and specifically during the four months of dedicated clinical research time during their third year of training. The residents are encouraged and fully supported to present their research findings at local, regional, and national conferences.