Curriculum/Schedule

Maternal Fetal Medicine fellows receive the majority of their training at the UC Health University Hospital. This includes all work during the first year of fellowship.

During their first year, the fellows act as attending physicians on labor and delivery and run the high-risk antenatal service for six months. They work closely with and supervise the resident team. All of this occurs under the direct supervision of one of the full-time maternal fetal medicine faculty members.

During the second year, the fellows work primarily at the University Hospital Perinatal Center or Christ Hospital Perinatal Center learning to perform targeted ultrasounds under the direct supervision of the MFM faculty. They concentrate on outpatient evaluation and treatment.

This year includes two months at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in the Fetal Care Clinic doing fetal echocardiography. Both of these rotations are outpatient.

During the third year, the fellows do five months of electives. The fellow meets with the program director and electives are selected to advance the education of the fellow’s goals. These electives can be clinical or research oriented. One month on clinical genetics service is required. Encouraged clinical electives include Critical Care in the SICU and Infectious Disease.

Six months of each year of fellowship is set aside for protected research time. The division has been working with the Perinatal Institute at Cincinnati Children’s under the direction of Jeffrey Whitsett, MD, to allow the fellows to work with world-class basic researchers.

Both of our current third-year fellows are working with Alan Jobe, MD, PhD, and Sushas Kallapur, MD, both world-renowned researchers in the field of fetal lung development.

Our fellows have been actively involved in clinical and basic science research investigations leading to multiple presentations by each at the most important scientific meetings in our specialty, namely the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine. The combination of ample clinical material, close supervision and extensive interaction with clinical attendings and the outstanding scientific infrastructure, described above, equip the fellows to be knowledgeable consultants and sets a strong foundation for future scientific careers in the field of MFM.

In the past, several of our fellows have presented at a variety of meetings throughout the country. These have included Society for Gynecologic Investigation (SGI), American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine (AIUM), American Society of Gene Therapy (ASGCT), North American Society of Hypertension in Pregnancy (NASSHP) and International Society of Pregnancy (ISP), as well as American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) meetings

The fellows take two graduate-level courses during their fellowship, as required by ABOG. Our program requires bio-statistics as one of these. We have also initiated the opportunity for our fellows to receive a Master of Science in Clinical and Translational Research during the three-year MFM fellowship program. This program has been offered at the institution since 2005 and is the result of an NIH K30 clinical research grant.

The fellow can choose to specialize in one of four tracks:

• Clinical epidemiology and clinical effectiveness
• Molecular epidemiology
• Clinical trials
• Translational research

The program takes two years to complete and is quite demanding. It consists of 45 graduate credit hours and a research thesis. One of our past fellows completed the program. Also, one of our maternal fetal medicine faculty members has completed this educational endeavor.