Northwestern McGaw offers a four-year graduate program designed to prepare residents for clinical practice, subspecialization, an academic career, or a career in public health.
During the four-year program, residents assume increasing responsibility for patient care. The experience is divided into eight equal rotations per year. The first year includes rotations in obstetrics, gynecology, ambulatory medicine, and neonatology.
In the second year, residents have three rotations in obstetrics, two in gynecology, and one each in gynecologic oncology, high-risk obstetrics, and emergency medicine.
The third year includes rotations in gynecologic oncology and gynecologic surgery; an outpatient rotation that includes colposcopy, ultrasound, gynecologic urology, genetics, and pediatric gynecology; two rotations in obstetrics; one rotation in reproductive endocrinology; and one flexible rotation. The third-year rotation in research is described below.
The fourth year includes two rotations as chief resident in obstetrics, two rotations as chief resident in high-risk obstetrics, three rotations as chief resident in gynecology, and two rotations in ambulatory obstetrics and gynecology.
An ambulatory continuity experience occurs during all four years of the program. Team practices, consisting of six residents—two from each year—and assigned attending physicians, allow residents to follow their own panel of patients within a practice throughout the residency.
Most hospital assignments are at the new Prentice Women's Hospital of Northwestern Memorial Hospital, which opened in October 2007. To complement their experience at Prentice, residents also are assigned to rotations at Evanston Northwestern Healthcare all four years.
Female sterilization and pregnancy termination procedures are offered to patients seeking care in Northwestern programs. While residents are not required to perform these procedures, they are expected to participate in the management of the patients experiencing complications from sterilization and pregnancy termination.
Residents are required to take the annual Council on Resident Education in Obstetrics and Gynecology (CREOG) in-training examination. Their clinical performances are evaluated regularly by faculty members. Based on performance, residents are promoted annually to the next level of responsibility. A faculty adviser is assigned to or selected by each resident for academic and personal counseling.
Conferences include a didactic series, department grand rounds, department clinical service reviews, and residents' teaching conferences, which are structured to cover the CREOG Educational Objectives for Residents in Obstetrics and Gynecology. Subspecialty conferences are held also in genetics, gynecologic oncology, perinatology, and reproductive endocrinology. Complete library facilities are available, and a journal club is held monthly. Residents may attend monthly meetings of the Chicago Gynecological Society. On entering the second year, residents are encouraged to attend one regional or national meeting annually. Residents may also attend postgraduate courses offered by the department.
Residents are encouraged to take flexible time in the third year in an area of medicine that will further their career plans.
Each resident must select and, with guidance from a faculty adviser, prepare a research project for presentation at the department's annual Residents' Research Seminar. The project report is then submitted as the resident's required thesis. Opportunities for basic and clinical research are available. A research rotation in the third year permits residents uninterrupted time for their research projects.
The program uses the new Prentice Women's Hospital of Northwestern Memorial Hospital—Northwestern’s primary teaching hospital for obstetrics and gynecology—and the teaching hospitals of Evanston Northwestern Healthcare (ENH).
The new Prentice comprises 17 floors with 328 beds, 10 operating rooms, 86 Levell III neonatal ICU bays, 32 labor and delivery rooms, 4 Caesarean section rooms, and 144 newborn bassinets. In 2007, 10,538 babies were delivered at Prentice. The new facility was built with the capacity to support the delivery of 13,600 babies a year. Two inpatient floors house the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
ENH's Evanston Hospital is a community-based teaching hospital with a long tradition of resident education. It is part of the Northwestern Perinatal Center with high-risk pregnancy and neonatal care facilities. Each subspecialty area is represented. Glenbrook Hospital provides an optional third-year rotation in gynecologic surgery.
Nine positions are offered in each of the four years of the program.
The Residency Committee of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology screens all applications and invites selected applicants for interviews. Such applicants will be notified at the earliest possible opportunity. The completed application must be submitted through the Electronic Residency Application Service and received by the committee by November 1. Applicants are responsible for making sure that Northwestern receives all elements of the application; incomplete applications cannot be reviewed. Interviews are conducted on three selected Saturdays in December and/or January.
Applications cannot be screened properly unless adequate information is available. Applicants should therefore include overall scores obtained in Parts I and II of the USMLE examination, if available; and list any honors or other distinctions obtained in medical school courses and other information, including research papers and publications, that will aid thorough evaluation. Send three letters of recommendation, including at least one letter from either the department chair or a senior faculty member in obstetrics and gynecology and one from a faculty member in another specialty.
Applicants are welcome to visit the department and the new Prentice Women's Hospital, where every attempt will be made to have a resident serve as host and answer questions. However, formal interviews are conducted only during regularly scheduled sessions.
Sherman Elias, MD
John J. Sciarra Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology
Magdy P. Milad, MD, MS
Karyn Grimm Herndon, MD
Richard K. Silver, MD
Evanston Northwestern Healthcare
Sherman Elias, MD
Prentice Women's Hospital of Northwestern Memorial Hospital
Ralph K. Tamura, MD
Diagnostic Ultrasound
Catherine Stika, MD
Tacoma A. McKnight, MD
General Obstetrics and Gynecology
John R. Lurain, MD
Gynecologic Oncology
Melvin V. Gerbie, MD
Gynecology
Lee P. Shulman, MD
Human Genetics
Michael L. Socol, MD
Obstetrics and Maternal-Fetal Medicine
Ralph R. Kazer, MD
Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility
For more information, contact Residency Coordinator Renee Poland, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, 250 East Superior Street, Suite 05-2177, Chicago, Illinois 60611-2914, 312/472-4673; fax 312/472-4687 or visit the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology Web site.
E-mail: nu-obgyn@nmh.org
Obstetrics and Gynecology