Obstetric and Gynecologic Anesthesiology Fellowship

Program Director: Laura Dean, MD

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

Didactic and Teaching

We strive to provide an academic fellowship experience allowing our fellows to gain both clinical expertise and exposure to research and teaching. The obstetric anesthesiology faculty are enthusiastic about teaching and have been awarded the "Golden Apple Award" for best teaching in the Department of Anesthesiology. Fourteen full and part-time obstetric anesthesiologists provide instruction, supervision, and consultation. Daily didactic obstetric anesthesiology lectures are given by faculty and fellows.  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. Wake Forest Obstetric Anesthesiology faculty have research funding from the NIH and have authored many original manuscripts, abstracts and textbook chapters. We have also recently authored and edited a textbook titled "Practical Obstetric Anesthesia." Our faculty has an active leadership presence in the national Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology (SOAP). Fellows are tutored in every aspect of clinical research including conception of research protocols, writing proposals and consents, collecting and recording data, analyzing data, writing abstracts for presentation, preparing presentation slides and lectures, and writing manuscripts. Most fellows complete at least one original clinical protocol during their fellowship. Past clinical research by obstetric anesthesia fellows has been awarded the Gertie Marx Award for best clinical paper at the annual SOAP meeting.

Application Process

To learn more about our Obstetric 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 2012-2013 year have been filled.  We are currently accepting applications for 2013-2014. Thank you for your interest in our program.