Women’s Health Track

The Women’s Health Track is a post-match option for residents interested in more exposure to women’s healthcare. Residents will participate in all activities available to traditional categorical residents, as well as more gender specific training as outlined below.

Ambulatory training

• Gynecology continuity clinic: R1 residents will participate in a continuity gynecology clinic that alternates with the traditional medicine continuity clinic. This clinic is staffed by Obstetrics/Gynecology faculty and allows residents to participate in office gynecology procedures such as endometrial biopsy, colposcopy, and intrauterine device placement.
• VA Women’s Clinic: R2-3 residents will participate in the VA Women’s Primary care clinic alternating with one of their traditional medicine continuity clinics. This clinic allows residents to offer complete healthcare services to their female patients, including office gynecology and traditional internal medicine care of chronic illness. There is a series of short didactic lectures on Women’s Health topics given at the beginning of each clinic session.
• Ambulatory block months: Women’s health track residents are traditionally also participants in the primary care track, offering extra ambulatory block month experiences. We have a strong relationship with several OB/Gyn clinics and are able to offer the women’s health track residents experiences in colposcopy clinic, high risk OB clinic, breast clinic, continence clinic, and others.

Mentoring

The women’s health track faculty are a dedicated group of general internal medicine faculty members. They are eager to provide one-on-one mentoring for any of the Women’s health track residents along with the planned interactions noted below.

• Journal Club: WHT journal club is a bimonthly gathering of residents and faculty, usually for dinner at a faculty home. Residents present journal articles pertinent to women’s health issues and all participants discuss the relative merits and practice implications of the topic. This also offers a less formal opportunity to interact with faculty.
• Research Projects: The women’s health residents have a history of presenting research projects at regional and national meetings. These projects are often related to women’s health education, but faculty are excited about mentoring any project that a resident is interested in.

Beyond Residency

Women’s health track residents uniformly feel well prepared to move beyond residency training into a variety of career pathways. Recent graduates of the track have entered cardiology, endocrinology, geriatrics, palliative care, and academic general internal medicine. The subspecialty and inpatient experience does not differ from the categorical residency track. The Women’s Health track experience simply provides more exposure to the care of female patients from a broad perspective. We believe this is invaluable training for any physician. In addition, interested residents may become certified to perform office gynecology procedures such as endometrial biopsy, IUD placement, or colposcopy. Certification post residency for any of these procedures can be quite costly to obtain.

Interested?

The Women’s Health and Primary Care Tracks at UAB are post-match options for any interested resident. Applicants will need to apply to the Internal Medicine residency first. Once accepted, they can elect a specific track.

Please contact faculty and residents listed below for more information. Applicants who are selected for interview are encouraged to notify the residency program that they are considering the Women’s Health Track. We will make every attempt for those residents to interview with Women’s Health faculty and meet with the residents.

Co-Directors

Erin Snyder, MD
Assistant Professor, General Internal Medicine
esnyder@uab.edu

Teri Bryan, MD
Assistant Professor, General Internal Medicine
Teresa.bryan@va.gov

Obstetrics/Gynecology Liason

Laura Lee Joiner, MD
Assistant Professor, Obstetrics and Gynecology

Other Key Faculty

Emily Boohaker, MD
Analia Castiglioni, MD
Lisa Willett, MD
Andrea Cherrington, MD

Current Residents

PGY1: Brita Roy - britaroy@uab.edu
PGY1: Erin Doud – edoud@uab.edu
PGY2: Beret Casey – becasey@uab.edu
PGY2: Jenifer Hughes Shuemaker- jlhughes@uabmc.edu
PGY2: Victoria Fox – vfox@uab.edu
PGY2: Jacque Covington – jcovington@peds.uab.edu
PGY3: Anna Zouhary – azouhary@uab.edu