Maternal-Fetal Medicine
Started by Leukocyte
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Leukocyte said:
The MFM's at my school are very smart and very happy. These patients are very complicated and it offers the MFM an opportunity to take on very challenging cases. Essentially the MFM is taking care of two patients at the same time. They have to decide when the uterus is no longer a safe place for both the mother and the baby (risk of prematurity of the baby versus the health of the mother and the baby for maintaining pregnancy).
I have been told that malpractice and risk of being sued is actually less because of the elevated risk of the pregnancy. People are sued over negligence. For example, a relatively normal pregnancy ends in disaster because the OB did not induce labor after prolonged rupture of membranes and the mom gets chorioamnionitis and then the kid gets septic, meningitis, and permanent brain damage. Easy case to argue in court. Unfortunately, people also sue over a bad outcome when the OB was not negligent at all. The OB's settle out of court or get caught on some technicality (eg, documentation) and the patient gets paid, unjustly. The MFM does not take care of "normal" pregnancies like these. Their patients are already at high risk of a poor outcome from the outset. As long as the doctor isn't grossly negligent, it is difficult to sue for poor outcome in the absence of negligence, unlike other low-risk pregnancies. Also, I have heard of several MFM's who do not actually deliver many of their patients. They simply manage the pregnancy and then defer the delivery to the hospital docs.
They do one surgery. You may have heard of it. It is called cesarean section. They do a lot of procedures such as amniocentesis and other types of tissue sampling. They may do other things that I am not aware of or am not thinking of at the moment.
Leukocyte, are you the guy who asked about peds cardiology? If so, we should get together because we have similar interests. I loved OB (I rotated through a place where they see a ton of high risk deliveries) and really wanted to do MFM. I started thinking about it again this weekend and am really confused on whether to go MFM or peds cardiology. Any advice for me???
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KylieP54 said:
3 year fellowship after 4 year ob/gyn residency. I have heard that it is not terribly competitive (not very many applicants) but programs are still picky with choosing fellows and many programs will go without a fellow rather than taking someone who is not suitable.
You will not find any MFM info on FRIEDA but info on all of the programs are on the website for the Society for MFM.
http://www.smfm.org/
click on "fellows channel" and then search programs by state
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