Obstetric and Gynecologic Anesthesiology Fellowship

Program Director: Laura Dean, MD

The Department of Anesthesiology offers 6-month and 1-year fellowship experiences in obstetric and gynecologic anesthesia. All deliveries in Forsyth County take place in the Women’s Center at Forsyth Medical Center and the obstetric anesthesia services are provided by the Department of Anesthesiology of Wake Forest School of Medicine. Approximately 6,500 -7,000 women deliver in Forsyth Medical Center, and we provide labor analgesia for 80% of these deliveries. We are a tertiary care obstetric service and high risk, complicated, parturients comprise 30-40% of our case load. Our cesarean section rate is approximately 25%.

Didactic and Teaching

We strive to provide an academic fellowship experience allowing the fellow to gain both clinical expertise and exposure to research and teaching. The obstetric anesthesiology faculty are interested in teaching and have been awarded the "Golden Apple Award" for best teaching in the Department of Anesthesiology. Eleven obstetric anesthesiologists provide instruction, supervision, and consultation. Daily didactic obstetric anesthesiology lectures are offered to junior residents. Faculty and Fellows in obstetric anesthesiology give this daily lecture. Faculty critique and proctor lectures given by fellows. All fellows are expected to teach and supervise junior residents, as this is an integral part of an academic fellowship.

Research

We have a very active clinical research program in obstetric anesthesiology. Ongoing areas of research interest include investigation of new spinal analgesics for labor and techniques for providing postoperative analgesia. Fellows are expected to participate in clinical research. Obstetric anesthesiology faculty have research funding from the NIH and the International Anesthesia Research Society and have authored many original manuscripts, monographs, chapters in textbooks, and edited a recent textbook "Practical Obstetric Anesthesia." Fellows are tutored in every aspect of clinical research including conception of research protocols, writing the proposals and consents, collecting the data, recording the data on a computer, analyzing the data, writing abstracts for presentation, preparing presentation slides, preparing presentation lectures, and writing manuscripts. Most fellows complete at least one original clinical protocol during their fellowship. Past clinical research in the obstetric and gynecologic anesthesiology section by obstetric fellows has been awarded the Gertie Marx Award for best clinical paper at the annual meeting of the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology.

Application Process

To learn more about the Obstetrical Fellowship review the  application packet  which includes an application and other related resources.  Interested individuals should contact Dr. Robert D’Angelo, Professor and Section Head of Obstetric Anesthesiology, or Dr. Laura Dean, Assistant Professor, Director of Obstetric Anesthesiology Fellowships, for further information.

Completed electronic application (Microsoft Word) can be emailed to Lori Bailey, OB Anesthesia Office Liaison, at lhbailey@novanthealth.org. Normally, 2-3 fellows are accepted each year and 12-month fellowship applications are preferred. Upon receiving a complete application, qualified candidates are usually invited for an interview.

Thank you for your interest in our program.
-Dr. Laura Dean, Program Director
-Dr. Robert D'Angelo, Section Head

All fellowship slots for the 2011-2012 year have been filled.  We are currently accepting appplications for 2012-2013. Thank you for your interest in our program.