Maternal-Fetal Medicine Fellowship

The fundamental goal of the training program in Maternal-Fetal Medicine at OU is to train physicians in the clinical, research, and academic principles required to:

Have advanced knowledge of obstetrical, medical, and surgical complications of pregnancy and their effects on both mother and fetus
Be skilled with prenatal ultrasound and diagnosis
Care directly for women with complicated pregnancies and function as a consultant to obstetricians
Have advanced knowledge of newborn adaptation
Function effectively in basic and clinical research in MFM to advance the field and remain current despite practicing in a rapidly changing field.

All clinical training occurs under the supervision of the MFM faculty in the Oklahoma Children’s Hospital inpatient and outpatient facilities and at the outpatient Oklahoma Children’s Hospital - Norman Specialty Clinic, with the only exclusions being the critical care rotation which occurs in the OU Medical Center Surgical ICUs supervised by the SICU faculty and the Genetics and Genomics rotation which occurs in the Oklahoma Children’s Hospital outpatient facilities and NICU supervised by Medical Genetics faculty.

Of the 36 months of the training program:

During the first month of the first year, there is an orientation rotation.
There is a month-long critical care rotation.
12 months are spent on dedicated research, and fellows choose to do clinical or basic science research.
- Fellows choosing the basic science route spend time in the laboratory of Dean Myers, PhD. Completion of a Master of Science degree in Physiology is an option, along with completion of graduate coursework and defending a thesis written from the basic or translational research project. Such fellows are also encouraged to conduct one or more clinical research projects during the fellowship.
- Fellows choosing to do clinical research work with one or more faculty mentors to design, implement, analyze, and report multiple clinical research studies. Such fellows audit graduate courses in statistics and epidemiology. Their thesis is chosen among their clinical projects and presented to the MFM faculty.
One month is spent doing a Genetics and Genomics rotation (fellows participate in the new course, “Basic Training, A Course in Reproductive Medical Genetics.") Also, fellows spend a week in the cytogenetics laboratory on campus.
Six months doing an ultrasound image acquisition rotation (two months annually).
Three months as L&D Supervisor (one month annually).
The remaining 12 months are spent doing the Clinical Services rotation, with every other week either in our ultrasound clinics, rounding on the inpatient antepartum service, or working in our high-risk obstetrics clinic.

Another unique opportunity within our training program is working in our Substance use Treatment And Recovery (STAR) Prenatal Clinic at OU Health, which provides specialized prenatal and post-partum care for pregnant women with substance use disorders. The goal of the STAR Prenatal Clinic is to provide comprehensive, specialized, and compassionate prenatal care for women with substance use disorders in pregnancy in a collaborative environment, including Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine providers at our institution and in the community, with an emphasis on coordination of care with supportive psychosocial services and substance use treatment providers.