Education

About the Program

The Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at Yale University School of Medicine offers a 4-year ACGME-accredited postgraduate residency training program in OB/GYN. There are currently 26 residents in the program, including six categorical resident positions per year and a one-year preliminary PGY-1 position. The program remains extremely competitive, and the number of applications as well as the quality of the applicants (as measured by AOA and USMLE score ≥240) has been increasing year by year. We continue to attract and recruit some of the top students from medical schools around the country. Candidates for the OB/GYN Residency Program also need to be qualified for the Yale Internal Medicine Residency, since they will work as residents on Internal Medicine for a period of four months in the PGY-1 year.

The OB/GYN Residency Training Program is based primarily at Yale-New Haven Hospital (YNHH), a 944-bed tertiary referral center that includes the 201-bed Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital and the 76-bed Yale-New Haven Psychiatric Hospital. Children's Hospital at YNHH includes a recently enlarged state-of-the-art Labor & Delivery unit and adjacent Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU). It also houses the postpartum floors and a step-down high-risk obstetric inpatient facility known as the Maternal Special Care Unit. Gynecologic in-patients are also accommodated in this facility. In all, each year, YNHH has approximately:

• 447,000 outpatient and emergency visits
• 45,000 discharges
• 4,800 deliveries
• 2,200 major gynecologic surgeries
• 2,100 minor gynecologic surgeries
• 12,000 obstetric ultrasound examinations
• 4,600 gynecologic ultrasound examinations

The Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at Yale is comprised of five Clinical Sections: Maternal-Fetal Medicine, Gynecologic Oncology, Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility, Urogynecology & Reconstructive Pelvic Surgery, and Family Planning. The Department also has a Section of Reproductive Sciences, which focuses primarily on basic science and translational research. The hospital-based Women's Center offers general obstetric and gynecologic outpatient care as well as subspecialty services using a continuity care model. Training in specific techniques is either covered in subspecialty rotations (such as OB/GYN ultrasound or Urogynecology) or is integrated into core clinical rotations (for example, learning about antenatal fetal surveillance during Obstetrics, or colposcopy and chemotherapy during Gynecologic Oncology). Additional ambulatory experience is provided in the form of an outpatient surgical rotation at Yale New Haven Temple Medical Surgical Center and a Family Planning rotation run in collaboration with Planned Parenthood® of Connecticut to provide residents with the latest training in reproductive options for women. The residency program also includes rotations dealing with anesthesiology, breast disease, primary care, geriatric medicine, human sexuality, and menopause.

Although we prize intellectual and academic achievement, the primary goal of the residency training at Yale is to produce OB/GYN clinicians with an outstanding fund of knowledge, a sound theoretic base, and expert surgical skills to serve the community at large. We believe that sound clinical skills are critical to superior performance in the postgraduate years, regardless of whether one remains in an academic medical center or enters private practice. As part of their learning experience, residents are expected to teach each other and to supervise and teach Yale medical students.

In addition to an active full-time University clinical faculty, there is an equal number of full-time bench scientists as well as clinical and research fellows who are available to the residents for collaboration on research projects. Subspecialty fellows serve as junior members of the faculty, and do not compete with residents for clinical cases. There are also over 70 community-based faculty members who admit their patients to YNHH, and who are closely integrated with the University staff. Community and University faculty attend integrated teaching rounds and conferences, and enjoy a harmonious relationship centered on their shared responsibility for house staff education and training. Finally, one afternoon each week is dedicated to the didactic education of the OB/GYN residents, and all residents are excused from clinical responsibilities during that time. CREOG reviews, professionalism seminars, animal laboratories to teach surgical technique, and meetings with the OB/GYN Program Director are conducted on a regular basis.