General Surgical Department serves all patient age groups and both genders Primary, secondary & tertiary care is given to Saudi, GCC residents, eligible Expatriate patients. Patients are mostly from Al-Khobar, Dammam cities. However, tertiary care is provided to all the eligible patients of the Eastern Province and other areas of the Kingdom.
The services provided by the General Surgery Department are divided into 3 main domains:
- Clinical Service
- Teaching
- Research
These 3 domains interact and complement each other. They are accomplished through the following:
Scope of Clinical Service
We serve our patients in 5 main sectors namely OPD, ER, wards, OR and consultations. The department constitutes General and Minimally Invasive Surgery, Colorectal Surgery, Breast Surgery, Endocrine Surgery, Pediatric Surgery, Vascular Surgery, Cardio-Thoracic Surgery and Plastic Surgery Divisions.
OPD
The department has 24 OPD sessions/week, (morning and afternoon sessions) supervised by a consultant.
- General Surgery & Laparoscopic Clinic – 4 per week
- Breast disorder and Breast Oncology Clinic – 3 per week
- Colorectal & Proctology Clinic – 2 per week
- Hepatobiliary Clinic – 1 per week
- Vascular Surgery Clinic – 2 per week
- Pediatric Surgery Clinic – 3 per week
- Plastic Surgery Clinic – 3 per week
- Cardio-Thoracic Surgery Clinic – 2 per week
ER
Monthly on call Rota is covered daily by 1st on call (Junior Resident), 2nd on call (Senior Resident), Senior Registrar on call and a Consultant.
Admissions
Patients are admitted according to the hospital regulations either from OPD or ER. Patients are admitted under supervision of the consultant in charge. Elective admissions are investigated before admission to reduce the hospital stay.
Operating Room
The department has nine major OR rooms and five minor OR rooms per week for elective cases which are under direct supervision of consultants.
Emergency Operations are performed round the clock as and when required by all the units of the department.
Continuous assessment of medical services provided to our patient is done through monthly audit and case presentations.
Teaching Services
This is provided by the department all over the year, it is mainly done by the consultants but specialists and demonstrators do contribute to clinical teaching. Teaching is provided to the following:
- Undergraduate medical students (4th and 6th year medical students, 5th year dental students, Graduate Nursing students)
- Post graduate residents in Saudi Board grogram for General Surgery& Plastic Surgery
- Post graduate residents in Saudi Board program or its equivalent for Family & Community medicine, Urology, ENT, Orthopedics, Neurosurgery etc. having their general surgery rotations.
- These services are conducted through the following activities and procedures:
- Morning scientific activity
- Clinical teaching for the residents in the OPD
- OR supervision for the residents
- Problem based lectures for the undergraduates Medical & Dental students
- Clinical rotations for the undergraduates
- Preparation of the OSCE and MCQ exams for the undergraduates
- Daily inpatient rounds
- Weekly Grand Rounds and/or Tumor boards.
- Lectures and clinical teaching for residents of the eastern province according to the schedule prepared by the Regional Training Supervisory Committee.
- Organization and conducting of the promotion, certifying exams for the Saudi Board Residents.
Research Services
- Being a university hospital, research is one of the most important services conducting by our department in order to help prevention, control, diagnosis and management of diseases.
- Several clinical, experimental and epidemiological studies (Prospective, Randomized, retrospective, cohort, and case control) have been done by the department. More than 400 articles have been published in leading International and National journals.
- Several books pertaining to General Surgery have been published for undergraduates and postgraduates.
Hours of service provision
8:00 AM – 4:00 PM regular working hours
On call (4:00 PM – 8:00 AM) after office hour.
