The Obstetric Anesthesiology Fellowship at Wake Forest School of Medicine has a vast curriculum that focuses heavily on clinical rotations and patient care. We also place an emphasis on research opportunities, didactic conferences and simulation. We offer two ACGME accredited fellowship positions each year and will occasionally offer a third non-ACGME position.

Clinical Rotations

Fellows rotate with Maternal Fetal Medicine and Neonatology for two individual two-week blocks. These rotations solidify understanding of our multidisciplinary approach to patient care and enhance the fellows’ communication with our obstetric and neonatal colleagues.

Fellows are responsible for all labor and delivery patients as well as those who proceed to cesarean section. Any interesting preoperative consults or postoperative complications will initially be evaluated by the fellows whenever possible.

On Call Duties

Fellows have the opportunity to take blocks of five night calls with the five subsequent days off. This is in a supervisory role once every two months as requested. Fellows can expect to take one weekend call per month.

 Research Opportunities

Each fellow is assigned a mentor or advisor to work on an ongoing research project. Fellows enroll patients for appropriate studies, including those for other investigators. Each fellow is allowed ample nonclinical time to complete research and didactic projects.

Our active clinical research program provides opportunity for fellows to become engaged in research objectives at the onset of the year. Wake Forest Obstetric Anesthesiology faculty members have varied research funding grants including from the National Institute of Health (NIH) and have authored many original manuscripts, abstracts and textbook chapters. We have also recently authored and edited the second edition of a textbook titled Obstetric Anesthesia. Our faculty also has active leadership presence in the national Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology (SOAP).

Fellows are mentored in every aspect of clinical research including:

Conception of research protocols

  • Writing institutional review board (IRB) proposals and consents
  • Collecting and recording data
  • Analyzing data
  • Writing abstracts for presentation
  • Preparing presentation slides and lectures
  • Submitting manuscripts for publication

Fellows are encouraged to complete a scholarly project which may include at least one original clinical protocol during their fellowship. Past and recent clinical research by Wake Forest obstetric anesthesia fellows has been awarded the Gertie Marx Award for best clinical paper at the annual SOAP meeting.

Conferences and Didactics

Our fellowship focuses on providing an academic experience that allows our fellows to gain both clinical expertise and exposure to research and teaching. Daily didactic obstetric anesthesiology lectures are mentored by or led by faculty and fellows.

Fellows receive a copy of the Chesnut’s Obstetrics Anesthesia textbook as well as the clinical handbook published by our faculty. Fellows gain a graduating level of responsibility in orienting, teaching and supervising junior residents and nurse anesthesia students throughout their academic training.