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Training & Curriculum

Educational Goals and Learning Objectives


The fellowship consists of 12 calendar months of clinical and didactic teaching at Cedars-Sinai. Eight months are devoted to labor and delivery (includes one month of vacation), one-half month to neonatal intensive care unit, three months to research and one-half month to maternal-fetal medicine. Our weekly, high-risk interdisciplinary conference with OB/MFM, NICU, cardiology and perinatal nursing teams as well as our robust Obstetric Anesthesia High-Risk Clinic, engage fellows at the highest levels of learning and patient care.

Instructional Objectives


The fellowship emphasizes the acquisition of the fundamentals of theory and practice of the subspecialty of obstetric anesthesiology. These fundamentals include the following: the full scope of maternal physiologic alterations of the pregnancy and its anesthetic implications; the principles of perinatal pharmacology; techniques of inducing general and regional anesthesia and the management of their complications; and fundamentals of operative delivery, obstetric hemorrhage, the obstetric patient undergoing non-obstetric surgery and postpartum surgery in the parturient.

In addition, the fellow is expected to be exposed to the principles of the dynamics of fetal adaptation from intra- to extrauterine life, prepartum and intrapartum fetal assessment and effects of maternally administered drugs on the fetus and neonate, as well as neonatal assessment and resuscitation.

Other relevant areas of knowledge include pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of local anesthetics and the use of epidural and subarachnoid opioids, as well as drug interactions of commonly used uterotonics and tocolytics.

Clinical Curriculum


The obstetric anesthesiology fellow must gain clinical experience in a variety of scenarios affecting the care of pregnant and peripartum women. Although fellows should gain most of their clinical experience providing hands-on clinical care, they also should care for some patients while simultaneously supervising core residents in anesthesiology—both activities being ultimately supervised by a faculty anesthesiologist with substantial expertise in obstetric anesthesia. It is the expectation that the fellow will have a significantly different and essential experience when simultaneously caring for a patient and functioning in the role of teacher/supervisor of a core resident. The goal of having subspecialty fellows teach and supervise core residents while also caring for patients is to prepare them to become faculty supervisors and teachers for the next generation of obstetric anesthesiologists. A graduate of the program will have additional skills and lecture to run a clinical service—incorporating leadership skills, hospital committee and professional society dynamics.

Our weekly high-risk interdisciplinary conference with OB/MFM, NICU, cardiology and perinatal nursing teams and our robust, high-risk obstetric anesthesia preoperative clinic members, will engage fellows at the highest levels of learning and patient care.

Scholarly Activities


Three months are designated for research or other well-defined scholarly activity. The program offers fellows significant opportunities to participate in such activities. Each fellow is required to participate in a yearlong obstetric anesthesiology-related research project, with the goal to complete at least one project initiated during fellowship training.

Research skills are taught in the curriculum during regular seminars to discuss specific research topics, including study design, Institutional Review Board applications, statistical modeling, data analysis and abstract/paper writing. Fellows are scheduled for protected research time throughout the duration of the program, for a total of three months.

The program scoring system establishment will provide a simple and objective evaluation of the fellow’s scholarly activity.

Conferences


Fellows in the Cedars-Sinai Obstetric Anesthesiology Fellowship are able to attend various national and international conferences, medical panels and fairs. In addition to attending these conferences, fellows are encouraged to take an active part and present cases.

Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology
Founded in 1968, the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology (SOAP) brings together anesthesiologists, obstetricians, pediatricians and basic scientists who care for pregnant patients and newborns. The mission of SOAP is to improve the pregnancy-related outcomes through obstetric anesthesiology research. Annual meetings include an educational program with lectures, hands-on workshops and skill-building opportunities. In addition to structured professional development, there's also time for recreational activities.

Have Questions or Need Help?

Contact us if you have questions or would like to learn more about the Obstetric Anesthesiology Fellowship at Cedars-Sinai.

8635 W. Third St., Suite 1180W
Los Angeles, CA 90048