Didactic Conferences

The Department of Obstetrics Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences reserves Friday morning for protected didactic time. Grand rounds are held at 0800H, and the fellows are expected to both attend and present at these conferences. A 1000H obstetric-specific didactic session is held several times a month consisting of resident presentations of cases seen over the previous week. Once a month, this time period is devoted to a departmental journal club. The fellows participate as faculty in the discussion of each case or article and may provide teaching points as well as critical evaluation of the case or topic of the resident’s presentation.

The fellowship curriculum is presented through five major didactic sessions each week. The foremost of these sessions is the Maternal-Fetal Medicine Fellows Seminar Series, which occurs Tuesdays at 7:30 am and this one hour time period is protected didactic time for the fellows. These seminars, directed at the level of fellow, are presented 75% of the time by MFM faculty and guest faculty and 25% of the time by MFM fellows. In addition, a weekly MFM division meeting is held Fridays at 1100 to 1200H, during which in-depth case-based discussions related to complex patients (presented by the fellows), management protocols and maternal and fetal pathophysiology are undertaken by fellows and MFM attending faculty. This 1100-1300H period is protected didactic time for the fellows.

A fetal therapy meeting is held each Thursday at 1000 for review and management planning of fetal patients with known anomalies and or genetic disorders that make up the fetal therapy patient population.

An Interdisciplinary Genetics Conference is held each Monday at 1230H. Both antepartum and pediatric genetic cases that have been seen by members of the clinical genetics service are discussed. The fellows, while learning clinical genetics and dysmorphology, also bring a valuable MFM viewpoint to a primarily genetic and pediatric audience. 

A joint Neonatal Maternal-Fetal Medicine conference is held each Monday at 1600H, during which time cases of mutual interest are presented and discussed with our neonatology colleagues. This session is attended by the MFM and neonatology faculty, fellows and on-service residents, allowing the MFM fellow to be exposed to many more cases than they can feasibly see. Maternal-Fetal Medicine fellows and Neonatology fellows also present formal lectures or journal club in turn on topics of mutual interest.

Wednesday afternoons at 3 pm are devoted to research seminars, during which fellows and MFM faculty members engage in an in-depth discussion of ongoing division research. The progress of each fellow's research is reviewed. These sessions are also utilized to instruct and develop the fellows in scientific writing, thesis preparation and presentation. The fellows present their abstracts, posters oral presentation and research papers in this forum as well. One a month, a session is devoted to a fellow-specific didactic seminar in the area of research design, execution, analysis, scientific writing and presentation.

In addition, fellows participate in conferences dedicated to the Complex Obstetric Surgery (COS) Program as well as the Complex Maternal Cardiac Disease Program. Fellows engage in multidisciplinary discussions regarding delivery planning as well as antepartum and postpartum considerations. Relevant imaging studies are also reviewed during theses meetings.