The San Joaquin General Hospital is a public institution serving a patient population which receives little or no other medical care besides that provided by its large emergency drop-in services, its formal clinics and its inpatient facilities. The major part of the direct patient care is rendered by the house staff. The teaching and consulting services are provided by full-time and geographical full-time faculty and by an attending staff recruited from the local community and from nearby medical schools.

Surgical Residency Program
The surgical residency is a graded, five-year program. During each of the five years, the resident is given increasing responsibility. First, second, and third-year surgical residents rotate on night call throughout their three junior years. During night call, they are responsible for all services of the Surgery Department. The senior residents similarly are on call for immediate consultation on all problems and operative cases. The attending surgeons maintain an on-call roster immediately available to the Chief Surgical Resident. The Chief Surgical Resident is on call every other night and every other weekend.

Although the Surgical Residency Program is based at the San Joaquin General Hospital, it is affiliated with the University of California, Davis. In addition to San Joaquin General Hospital, the residency program includes rotations through the University of California Davis Medical Center (Sacramento), and St. Joseph's Medical Center (Stockton). The program is, therefore, listed as follows:

San Joaquin General Hospital serves a total County population of approximately 500,000 people. As a public-operated facility, the patients admitted to the hospital, to the emergency room and to the clinics are the responsibility of the house staff physicians under the supervision of the attending faculty. The Surgery Department has 40-60 beds. During an average year, there are 5,000 patients admitted to the surgical services, and 6,000 surgical procedures performed. From July 2004 to July 2005, 22,320 patients patients were seen in the surgical outpatient clinics. A large volume of traumatic cases are seen in the Emergency Department, which is usually busy because of location on two major highways.

The University Medical Center(Sacramento) is an acute hospital licensed for 409 beds. It has an active emergency department, outpatient clinics, and research facilities. Since July 1985, third- or fourth-year surgical residents have been rotating through the University of California, Davis Medical Center in Pediatric Surgery, Surgical Intensive Care Unit/Burns, Trauma and Transplantation.