Minimally Invasive Gynecological Surgery Fellowship Curriculum

Required courses for the Minimally Invasive Gynecologic Surgery Fellowship include:

Designed for students with little or no previous course work in mathematics or statistics. Topics include study design, data description, elements of probability, distribution of random variables, applications of the binomial and normal distributions, estimation and confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, contingency tables, regression, and analysis of variance. Additional topics include introduction to statistical computing and data management, distribution, free statistical methods, demographic measures, and life tables.

This course runs daily throughout July of each year. Fellows are taught medical statistics, disease etiology, computer science, and medical writing. Lectures are given on the use of human subjects, animal research, and full consent of confidentiality.

Basic didactic learning in statistics and research are encouraged with the classes noted above. Fellows can choose to pursue a Masters in Public Health or a Masters in Clinical Research, both offered through The University of Texas. Others have chosen to involve themselves in the Clinical Scientist Training Program. This is a one- or two-year program teaching fellows all aspects of research and grant writing as well as biostatistics. For more information on this program, please visit the Clinical Scientist Training Program site.

Please note that these programs require applications that may be due prior to the fellowship start date.

The fellow is responsible for attending all assigned surgical cases, familiarizing themselves with the patient history prior to surgery, and dictating the H&P as appropriate. At the end of each week, the fellow will review the following week’s operative schedule with the program faculty and will select the appropriate cases. The fellow will be responsible for rounding on all assigned patients.

Preoperative and postoperative care is essential to good medical practice. The fellow will attend clinic with the program faculty, work up new patients and see all postoperative patients.

On the private service, the fellow, with accompanying attending supervision, acts as junior faculty to teach the residents assigned to the service and guide them through gynecologic operative procedures. The fellow also organizes a monthly conference for the residents at St. Luke’s on various pertinent topics.

Each fellow is required to take faculty-level general OB/GYN night call in our major resident teaching hospital twice a month.