Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology Fellowship Program

Didactic Conferences

In addition to weekly Departmental Grand Rounds, four didactic sessions are conducted each week in Maternal-Fetal Medicine. The first is Perinatal Genetics Rounds supervised each Monday at 12:30 by members of the clinical genetics faculty. Both antepartum and pediatric genetic cases, which have been seen by members of the clinical genetics service, are discussed. The fellows participate in this conference bringing a valuable MFM viewpoint to a primarily genetic and pediatric audience.

The second session is a joint Neonatal Maternal-Fetal Medicine conference held each Monday afternoon at 4:00 during which time cases of mutual interest are presented and discussed with our neonatology colleagues. This session is attended by the Perinatologists, Fellows, and on-service residents, allowing the fellow to be exposed to many more cases than they actually can see. Once a month this conference is dedicated to clinical pathological conference format with strong input from pathology, imaging, and pediatric surgery services. The fellows are participants in these conferences, presenting clinical review and correlation for each case presented.

The third session is held Thursday morning at 7:30 when the events of the preceding week on Labor & Delivery are reviewed critically and examined for quality assurance and teaching purposes. During this session intrapartum management is discussed, as is the interpretation of fetal heart rate tracings and delivery umbilical blood gases. This session is attended by students, residents, fellows, and faculty.

The fourth didactic session is held Friday morning in association with departmental educational time. It consists of a case conference of a complex topic or case presented by residents on the Maternal-Fetal Medicine service. The fellows facilitate the discussion of each case and may be called upon to present an ad-hoc critique of the case or of the resident's presentation. The fellows are required to attend and participate in Departmental Grand Rounds on a weekly basis.

We also conduct a series of fellows' seminars. These seminars, which also take place Friday morning in association with departmental educational time, are held thrice monthly. The first Friday session each month is devoted to a research seminar. All active research programs involving the fellows and the progress therein are reviewed. New ideas for research opportunities are explored, and the status of pending presentations and publications will be monitored. These seminars are attended by all fellows and both clinical and basic science faculty.

The third Friday of each month is host to the Fellows Learning Seminars, (FLS) an ongoing series of approximately designed to cover the breadth of the sub-specialty as outlined in the Guide to Learning in Maternal- Fetal Medicine . Recommended reading will be made available in advance of each FLS, and a faculty member will facilitate each session.

The final Friday of each month will be devoted to a Journal Club in which Fellows present a combination of recent articles on controversial management issues in Maternal- Fetal Medicine, as well as classic articles upon which the specialty is based. These seminars are attended by all fellows and MFM faculty; basic science faculty will be invited to relevant discussions. Aspects of critical review, study design, writing techniques as well as the scientific merit of the papers will be discussed.