The Urogynecology and Reconstructive Pelvic Surgery Fellowship curriculum provides traditional and nontraditional training activities in a variety of clinical and classroom settings and instructional formats.
Curriculum Components
Didactic Program
Urogynecology pre-op conference: Fellows attend this weekly conference with program faculty members to focus on planning and discussion for upcoming surgical procedures.
Interprofessional case conference: Fellows attend the pelvic floor disorder case conference at the Women’s Health Institute. Other participants include physical therapists, social workers, registered dietitians, administrators, residents, medical students and physicians who discuss the medical and surgical management of pelvic floor disorders while emphasizing quality, safety, equity and value of care. The goal of this conference is to enhance patient-reported outcomes and experiences, reduce costs and ensure timely availability of appropriate resources.
Women’s health and fellowship didactic series: Each Thursday morning, fellows participate in five hours of protected departmental and subspecialty learning. Trainees attend the Department of Women’s Health Grand Rounds, a gynecologic pre-op conference, a gynecologic patient safety conference and the departmental journal club. Fellows also engage in small group interactive discussions on a wide range of female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgery topics, fellows-as-teachers, Urogynecology and Reconstructive Pelvic Surgery Journal Club, simulation and research meetings — all facilitated by faculty. In addition, fellows are scheduled for self-directed learning that is protected, autonomous study time tailored to their individual needs.
Clinical Training & Research
Fellows’ rotations are designed and scheduled to optimize their technical and clinical skills and provide the ability to design and conduct a required research project. The program provides 12 months of protected research time throughout the three-year program, with monthly research meetings. The remaining 24 months are composed of clinical training in which fellows are assigned progressive levels of responsibility for medical and surgical management in the provision of patient-centered care.
Year 1
- Urogynecology and reconstructive pelvic surgery clinical training: 7 months
- Research: 4 months
- Urology: 1 month
Year 2
- Urogynecology and reconstructive pelvic surgery clinical training: 7 months
- Research: 4 months
- Urology: 1 month
Year 3
- Urogynecology and reconstructive pelvic surgery clinical training: 6 months
- Research: 4 months
- Urology: 1 month
- Colorectal Surgery: 1 month
- Elective: 1 month
From Great Ideas to Clear Results: Data, Epidemiology & Statistics for Clinical & Population Health Investigation
Ideas to Results is a yearlong course that starts in mid-August and uses a mix of didactic and flipped classroom sessions and mentored laboratory exercises, with a synchronous class occurring weekly. Topics covered include epidemiology, study design, data computing and biostatistics, all at an introductory level. Participants will learn to use Stata to manage and analyze data, and to interpret basic statistical analyses in the clinical literature.
To make the course as engaging and efficacious as possible, learners are expected to attend at least 85% of classes. The programs hopes this will also yield an inspirational cohort effect among the participants.