A review of the structure and training pathways for obstetric medicine physicians in Australia and New Zealand

Obstetric medicine care in South Europe

Obstetric medicine is an emerging area of interest within Internal Medicine in Europe. Despite that, "OM" is still an unpopular concept and an unrecognised subspecialty in South Europe. A considerable number of internists and medical specialists deal with maternal medical problems in association with obstetricians and other specialists on a daily basis. Due to their interest and mostly part-time dedication to maternal care, a growing mass of physicians are getting specific training in the field either locally or, less frequently, abroad, and are also building specific clinics, inpatient care services and other new bonds with obstetricians in numerous tertiary care centres. In this article, we aim to describe the state of the growing field of obstetric medicine in Portugal, Italy, France and Spain, the particular clinical, educational and academic efforts and steps that have recently been developed by internists in each country, as well as planned initiatives for the future.

Validation of content of clinical cases in obstetric medicine for a shared web-based educational tool

Subsequent to the validation of a Canadian Curriculum blueprint for Obstetric Medicine (OM), the Canadian Consensus for a Curriculum in Obstetric Medicine (CanCOM) research group was approached to develop 20 cases to address gaps in clinical exposure during clinical rotations in OM. Forty-nine Obstetric Internists were identified and 43 confirmed their affiliation to the group. Participants (N = 22) reviewed the content of the CanCOM blueprint and identified curriculum content that they considered essential for a rotation for senior General Internal Medicine residents. This survey led to the creation of the CanCOM II essential content blueprint for General Internal Medicine. Following this step, a second subgroup of participants (N = 21) participated in a Delphi survey to identify the content that should be addressed by a teaching case for senior General Internal Medicine residents. A high-level of consensus was obtained for 13 topics and a moderate level for the 7 subsequent topics resulting in the creation of the CanCOM II clinical cases available at http://gemoq.ca/cancom-ii-clinical-case-databank/.