Experience with flexibility in an academic residency program

Abstract

greater flexibility also might be beneficial if individuals are to be prepared for productive, academic research careers. Many of the current obstetric-gynecologic leaders in reproductive research pursued training programs that would be proscribed by current guidelines of the subspecialty boards. Thus, while many spent 1 or 2 years in a laboratory either abroad or in a basic science department in the United States, these are not components of “approved” programs of the current subspecialty disciplines. Furthermore, extensive clinical requirements, for example, the need for reproductive endocrinologists to train in tubal microsurgery and in vitro fertilization, and the large amounts of time in clinical pursuits mandated in fetal and maternal medicine and oncology mitigate against obtaining the requisite training to pursue an independent, productive, and competitive research-oriented career-and the discipline sorely needs this facet of the specialty better represented. Although I was not personally involved, the activity of this Society of which I have been most supportive and proud has been the creation of the Kennedy-Dannreuther fellowships. They furnish tangible evidence of the Society’s commitment to training investigators in the reproductive sciences. To maximize these opportunities, the greatest possible program flexibility needs to be encouraged and facilitated.