Christian Streck, M.D., Named Vice Chair of Education

The MUSC Department of Surgery is pleased to announce Christian Streck, M.D., has been named Vice Chair of Education. Before assuming the Vice Chair role, Dr. Streck led the General Surgery Residency Program as Program Director for eight years.  

Under Dr. Streck’s leadership, our General Surgery Education Program experienced unprecedented growth. During his tenure, the categorical general surgery resident complement increased from 5 to 8 residents per year and more opportunities were created for residents to be in the lab with dedicated research time, increasing from two spots to five. Streck says he enjoyed working on the many day-to-day operational details that program directors are involved in to create such growth and is now looking forward to building on his experience in his new role.    

“Dr. Streck is a leader with a true passion for education and giving back to the next generation,” said Prabhakar Baliga, M.D., Chair of the Department of Surgery. “He is fair, pragmatic, and has strong integrity and values that he conveys in each of his decisions.  I am most grateful to him for taking on this major responsibility.”

“As Vice Chair, I will have more time to look at the big picture and build on the programmatic strengths created under Dr. Talley’s leadership, like the Future Surgical Leaders and Pathways programs,” Streck said. He says there are already a number of educational opportunities he is working on that were started under Dr. Talley’s leadership, such as improving resident work spaces and expanding community rotations.  He looks forward to partnering with other Vice Chairs in the Department whose programs often involve residents and fellows, such as our research, well-being, and diversity equity and inclusion initiatives.  

Streck’s passion for giving back through leading the Education Division stems from his training.  “I know the value that I gained from all of the time my faculty put into our educational training programs and mentoring opportunities,” he said. “That inspires me to be a role model for the next generation of surgical leaders.”  

He says when incremental changes come to fruition and improve the educational environment, it ultimately improves the quality of patient care and morale within the workplace. “Quality of life is being in a place that our trainees want to work. It becomes an environment where they find value and feel valued,” he says. “It’s those incremental changes that lead up to creating change for the next cohort that will come through that I find so rewarding.”