The Division of Obstetric Anesthesia at Columbia has been training Fellows since the days of Virginia Apgar. Our goal is to train the future leaders of the subspecialty of Obstetric Anesthesia and Anesthesiology. We tailor the Fellowship to suit the interests, abilities and goals of the Fellow. We have had a few Fellows who spent two years here, about 30% clinical OB anesthesia and 70% research in the laboratory or clinical environment to start academic research careers, while others have done the more standard one year which is usually some mixture of clinical work and clinical research. One and two-year Fellowships are available which include advanced clinical training and experience, and the opportunity to initiate and/or participate in the research endeavors of our Division, Department and Medical Center. More extensive and/or intensive basic science/laboratory training can be combined with the clinical Fellowship on an individually-designed basis, especially with the two-year option. For Fellows with particular interests, there is the possibility of combining the clinical Fellowship with coursework in epidemiology, biostatistics and/or clinical research study design at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.
Recent and current research in the Division and in the Department relevant to obstetric anesthesia include a variety of studies of drug combinations and techniques for labor analgesia and post-partum pain relief, a program of research into the role of genetic polymorphisms on pregnancy complications, preterm and term labor and delivery, and response to anesthesia, and studies of gender differences in pain sensitivity and the effectiveness of different analgesic treatments.
Over the past 10 years, abstracts from the Division have won the “Best Paper of the Meeting” award at the annual meeting of the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology (SOAP) 4 times, and Best Paper at the International Society for Anesthetic Pharmacology. Some recent publications by faculty in the Division can give prospective Fellows some idea of what the areas of interest and active investigation are.
At Columbia, we have two L&D suites. The one at the main campus, where a Fellow would spend 80-90% of his/her time, has about 4500 deliveries, very high risk, both because many of the low-risk patents are delivered at the other "community hospital" L&D suite, and because we are the major children's hospital for New York (a catchment area of 16 million) so we get all kinds of interesting “fetal cases” sent here. The low-risk suite at the Allen Hospital of NewYork Presbyterian/Columbia, about 3 miles north of the main campus, delivers about 2500 annually.
We have a group of 8-10 OB Anesthesia faculty who cover our main L&D 24/7, and provide daytime and some night coverage at the Allen Hospital, so it is a relatively small group resulting in consistency in practice and education for residents and Fellows. The clinical Fellows role is to help organize and supervise residents, facilitate clinical research projects (and thereby learn how to do them), and see many of the complicated consultation patients.
Fellows are assigned 2-3 night calls per month, exclusively in the Labor and Delivery Suite (no OR call). Fellows can participate in rotations through obstetric ultrasound, to see what our colleagues are seeing in early pregnancy that we hear about later, and a few days to a week in the NICU, coming to births and cesareans with the pediatricians, to get training in neonatal resuscitation.
Faculty:
A. Robin Brown, MD
Charles Cain, MD, MBA
George Gallos, MD
Stephanie Goodman, MD
Jonathan Ko, MD
Suzanne Mankowitz, MD
Imre Redai, MD, Director of Critical Care Obstetric Anesthesia
Elena Reitman, MD
Laurence Ring, MD
Richard Smiley, MD, PhD, Division Chief
Current Fellows 20011/12:
Juan Davila, MD Residency-Albert Einstein/Montefiore
Elsje Harker, MD Residency-Universoty of North Carolina
Fellowship Application Checklist
Fellowship Application
For further information, write or contact:
Richard Smiley, MD, PhD
Professor of Clinical Anesthesiology (in OB/GYN)
Columbia University Department of Anesthesiology
Chief of Obstetric Anesthesia
Columbia University Medical Center
630 West 168th Street PH-5
New York, NY 10032
Tel: 212-342-2028
Fax: 212-342-2742
rms7@columbia.edu |
