Better Residency Programs Making Better OB/GYNs
SEPTEMBER 23, 2009
A study in the September 23-30 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association showed
that obstetricians and gynecologists who did their residencies at the
best programs had lower complication rates later in their careers.
According to an article in MedPage Today, "those who trained at
programs in the highest quintile had maternal complication rates that
were a third lower than those from the lowest-ranked programs. For
patients, that may mean that women should select obstetricians by where
they are trained," David S. Asch, MD, Professor of Medicine,
Associate Scholar, CCEB, executive director of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health, lead
author of the study and colleagues wrote. The findings also "open an
opportunity for investigation in other clinical settings." For example,
surgery quality is often associated with volume of procedures
performed, not physician characteristics. The author add, that
"physician ability is likely related not just to experience, but also
to training and intrinsic aptitude" and concluded that "the expected
clinical benefit of moving from treatment by an obstetrician who
graduated from a lower-tier program to an obstetrician from a
higher-tier program is relatively large." Sindhu Srinivas, MD, MSCE, Associate Scholar, CCEB, was also an author on the study.
