JUNIOR FELLOWS - SOUTH CAROLINA SECTION REPORT

GENERAL COMMENTS

As a new section officer, I am excited to represent The College on a local level by increasing the awareness of each junior fellow to the benefits of membership and encouraging them to participate in activities from the state to national level. Particularly in the midlands area, the percentage of members that view the ACOG website, read updates, vote in elections and contribute to current College projects is low and one of our goals this year is to stimulate interest and involvement.

SECTION ACTIVITIES

This academic year’s first Student Interest Group Meeting was held Wednesday September 16, 2009 at the Saluda River Club in Lexington, South Carolina and it was a big success! Dr. Paul Browne, USC MFM, was kind enough to host the kayaking experience with the twenty-plus medical students who arrived early then Dr. John Herbert arranged catering from Hudson’s Barbeque for everyone afterwards. Dr. Janice Bacon, Department Chair, along with myself, two other attendings and six additional residents all spoke about “why we chose obstetrics and gynecology”.

We are already planning our next Student Interest Group Meeting for November and the topic will be “what every medical student needs to know before interviewing at residency programs”.

Although it is still in the initial phase, we are planning to pilot a “Women’s Health Week” at a local University Sorority in hopes of making it available in the future to all members of Greek Life on campus.

MEDICAL STUDENT INITIATIVES

We are delighted to have two current fourth year medical students at USC help coordinate the OB GYN Student Interest Group Meetings:

Sam Tomlinson, MS-IV

sam.tomlinson@uscmed.sc.edu

Jill Braddy, MS-IV

jill.braddy@uscmed.sc.edu

In addition, we worked extremely hard this year to not only gain the interests of local students in attending the District IV Meeting in Asheville but to actually offer four of them funding through the Gibbons Fund. We are pleased to have Dan Homer, Beth Zabel, Mary Carol Jennings, and Ken Kaufman join us this weekend!

SPECIAL PROJECTS

Giselle Chandler, MD, PGY-4 at USC/Palmetto Health Richland presented her research entitled Primary Hyperparathyroidism in Pregnancy: A Case Series with a Review of the Literature at the SAAOG Meeting in January 2009, at the USC Resident Research Symposium in March 2009, and at the SC OB GYN Society Meeting in September 2009 – placing second!

South Carolina Section Junior Fellow Chair

Susan Oakley, MD, PGY-3

Oakley.susan@gmail.com