Obstetrics Fellowship Program
Daniel M. Avery, MD, FACOG, FACS
Associate Professor and Chairman
The University of Alabama Healthcare System is one of the world’s largest and most prestigious healthcare delivery systems, offering essentially every type of postgraduate training program imaginable. Dr. Paul Mozley, then Chairman of Obstetrics and Gynecology and now Professor Emeritus, developed one of the nation’s first Family Medicine/Obstetrics Fellowships at the College of Community Health Sciences and the University of Alabama School of Medicine at the Tuscaloosa Campus in 1985. The program was developed to address the overwhelming need for obstetric care in rural and remote areas, such as Alabama. As the attrition of OB/GYNs in the United States exceeds the number of physicians completing OB/GYN Residency Programs and entering general OB/GYN practice, programs training family physicians to provide quality obstetrical care will continue to grow in importance.
The twelve-month training program is supervised by full-time, board-certified Obstetrician/Gynecologists, some with subspecialty, fellowship training and Family Medicine/Obstetrics Fellowship trained faculty with more than a hundred cumulative years of experience. Fellows are trained in Instrumental/Operative Obstetrics, Cesarean Sections, Dilatation & Curettage, Ultrasound, Sterilization Techniques, Colposcopy, LEEP Procedures, Cryotherpy and Endometrial Biopsies. The fellow bears the responsibility of the Obstetrics Service under the supervision of the Attending Obstetrician/Gynecologist. As an Instructor of the University of Alabama School of Medicine, the fellow teaches medical students and residents in both the hospital and clinic settings and lectures to them every Friday afternoon. At the completion of the training program the fellow is expected to complete the requirements for board certification in Family Practice/Obstetrics available in 2007.
In 2005, the program is extended to 2 fellows per year and training in Medical and Surgical Management of Ectopic Pregnancies and Surgical Management of Obstetric Bleeding. The fellows are encouraged to participate with the Program Director in the development of Board Cerification for Family Medicine/Obstetrics. An ultrasound course with provision for basic ultrasound certification, general surgery and urology rotations and ABOG reading assignments for OB/GYN recertification is required. Completion of the ALSO course is recommended during the fellowship year. For more information:
Dwight E. Hooper, MD, MBA, FACOG
Assistant Professor/Obstetrics Fellowship Program Director
Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology
University of Alabama School of Medicine
PO Box 870376
Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487
205-348-1398
dhooper@cchs.ua.edu
"Family Medicine Physicians trained in Obstetrical and Newborn Care is the answer to reducing perinatal morbidity and mortality, not only in Alabama, but throughout the United States."—Avery (2003)