Residency Policies
Absences
In accordance with American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology requirements, a resident must extend training if he or she is absent more than 12 weeks in any individual training year or more than 24 weeks total during residency training. Absences from training include vacation, educational leave, sick leave/FMLA, interview time and bereavement leave. Compensated (paid) leave is allotted as follows:
Vacation Time
Year 1: 3 Weeks
Year 2: 3 Weeks
Year 3: 3 Weeks
Year 4: 3 Weeks
Personal Time Off/Wellness Days
Year 1: 2 Days
Year 2: 2 Days
Year 3: 2 Days
Year 4: 2 Days
Educational
1 week during the residency for educational conference or other opportunity
Sick Leave
Accumulated at the rate of 1 sick day per month of work
Job/Fellowship Interviews
1 week total to be used during PGY3 or PGY4 years
Bereavement Leave
3 days for qualifying loss in family.
American Congress of Obstetrics and Gynecology Junior Fellowship
The department sponsors the membership of each resident as a junior fellow of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. The application fee and annual dues are paid by the department during your residency training. With ACOG junior fellowship comes access to all of ACOG’s educational resources, including a subscription to Obstetrics and Gynecology, the Green Journal.
Call Requirements and Call Schedules
Night and weekend call is a critical part of a resident’s development of clinical skills as it affords the resident more independent opportunities to further develop skills in clinical assessment, formulation of differential diagnosis, and implementation of the plan of care. On night and weekend call, the intern works closely with the PGY3 resident to manage the obstetric service with procedural assistance from the PGY2 and PGY4 who collaborate to care for the gynecology services and in-house consultations.
There is a night float system in place for all resident levels. The night float residents are on duty from Sunday night through Thursday night, during which time they have no other clinical duties, office patients, or weekend call. Night float residents attend the Friday morning educational series to close their work week.
Weekend and holiday call schedules are created by each resident class, considering resident requests. All call shifts at Vanderbilt Medical Center are considered on-site call. The Administrative Chief Residents consolidate each class’s call schedule and manage scheduling conflicts and concerns.
It is expected that residents adhere to the ACGME guidelines regarding clinical experience and education (CEE, formerly known as duty hours). Continuous on-site duty for all resident levels must not exceed 24 hours with an additional 4 hours of transition activities with no new patients. Residents will be scheduled for 1 day off every week, averaged over 4 weeks and must not exceed a total of 80 hours worked per week, averaged over 4 weeks. The program leadership, faculty, and service chiefs are responsible for monitoring adherence to CEE guidelines and adjusting scheduled as appropriate to ensure compliance.
Away Elective
Each resident is afforded the opportunity to pursue an elective experience of educational value during their 4-week elective rotation during the PGY3 year. Residents have used this time for global health experiences, fellowship auditions, research (clinical and laboratory), or clinical experiences to augment their education. Away electives are approved by the Program Director and through the office of Graduate Medical Education.
Focus Time
Throughout each resident’s training, there is designated focus time where a resident may tailor his or her educational experiences to fit their intended career path. Focus time is imbedded in the office rotations during the PGY1, PGY2, and PGY4 years, and each PGY3 resident has an additional 4 weeks of focus time outside of their away elective. Residents can use portions of this time for research and/or clinical experiences beneficial to their career development in our department or other departments within Vanderbilt such as pediatrics, anesthesia, or general surgery.
Evaluation
Residents and faculty are provided the milestones-based goals and objectives for each clinical rotation. Midpoint evaluations are offered on 8-week rotations to evaluate whether the goals and objectives for the rotation are being met and help the resident focus on their attainment. At the close of each rotation, residents are evaluated against the OBGyn milestones by their supervising faculty. In addition, members of the nursing staff, professional associates such as medical assistants, rotating medical students, and patients evaluate each resident. This process makes for a holistic, 360-degree evaluation process, looking at different aspects of a resident’s clinical and professional development.
The Clinical Competency Committee (CCC), composed of faculty members from across the department, meets on a semiannual basis to review each resident’s performance and collate faculty evaluations and feedback. The resulting milestones assessments for each resident is submitted semiannually to the ACGME and reviewed with each resident every 6 months at his or her semiannual meeting with the Program Director or Assistant Program Director.
Residents have the opportunity to regularly review residency rotations, faculty and the program as a whole. These evaluations inform the program and help to drive programmatic changes to the educational content of the rotations and the overall curriculum.
In-Service Examination
All residents are required to take the annual written Council on Resident Education in Obstetrics and Gynecology (CREOG) national in-service exam, administered on two consecutive days in January. Residents’ examination performance informs programmatic changes to the educational content of the rotations and the overall curriculum. Individual scores are not publicized or used for purposes of resident promotion, but do assist in identification of individuals who would benefit from additional resources in particular subject areas or exam-taking skills.
Benefits
Vanderbilt University Medical Center provides individual or family major medical insurance for all resident house staff. Additional benefits include matching retirement fund contributions after one year of employment, occurrence-based malpractice insurance, optional life insurance, disability insurance, scrubs/laundering, white coats/laundering, meal funds for call shifts and free parking on-campus. For more detailed information regarding benefits, please visit www.vumc.org/gme/.
Research
The Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Vanderbilt is committed to excellence in research, and residents are required to complete a research project for presentation in the PGY3 year. Projects can be identified by a resident who then is assigned a faculty mentor. Faculty mentors also solicit residents for existing or proposed projects. The resident completes the project with assistance from the research staff and oversight from the faculty mentor. Each resident presents his or her completed project by the late spring Resident Research Day no later than PGY3 year with the expectation that the resulting abstract or paper is submitted for presentation thereafter. The department provides both financial support and additional educational leave for residents to travel to present their research at scientific meetings.
Salaries
Salaries for the 2023-24 year are as follows:
PGY 1: $64,025
PGY 2: $65,994
PGY 3: $68,912
PGY 4: $72,014
