Rural Maternal Child Health Fellowship

Program Overview

The ETSU Rural Maternal-Child Health Family Medicine Obstetrics (FMOB) Fellowship is a 12-month advanced training program with two fellows selected each year. The program prepares family physicians to provide comprehensive maternity and newborn care in rural and underserved communities.

Through advanced training in obstetrics, cesarean delivery, newborn care, women's health and rural primary care, fellows develop the skills needed to provide high-quality maternal and child health care and support access to essential services across Appalachia and rural America.

The fellowship combines high-volume procedural training with immersive rural practice experiences. Graduates are prepared to provide prenatal care, labor and delivery services, cesarean sections, newborn care, hospital medicine and continuity primary care in communities where access to maternity services is limited.

Why ETSU? Application Requirements Benefits

Curriculum

• Obstetrics & Maternal Care

  Fellows receive comprehensive training across the spectrum of pregnancy care including:

  • Prenatal care including high-risk obstetric management
  • Antepartum testing including obstetric ultrasound
  • Low and high-risk labor management including TOLAC
  • Routine and vacuum assisted vaginal delivery
  • Advanced perineal laceration repair
  • Cesarean delivery, including intraoperative tubal ligations
  • Postpartum care including family planning, breastfeeding medicine
  • Substance use disorder during pregnancy and perinatal mental health care
• Newborn & Pediatric Care

  Fellows develop skills necessary to care for newborns in both community and hospital settings. Training includes:

  • Neonatal resuscitation and stabilization
  • Routine normal newborn screenings and care
  • Neonatal jaundice and hypoglycemia management
  • Neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome
  • Normal newborn circumcision.
• Comprehensive Family Medicine based Primary Care

  The fellowship emphasizes continued comprehensive rural practice with additional rotations and exposure in adult inpatient medicine (not required but encouraged), chronic disease management, preventive care including well childcare and annual examinations and Medicare wellness, in addition to exposure to population health, quality improvement, telehealth and remote monitoring, interprofessional teams, and community-based health initiatives.

Rural Immersion Experience

A hallmark of the fellowship is our longitudinal rural immersion through Rural Medical Services, Inc and partner healthcare systems. Fellows will work directly in rural communities of East TN practicing full scope, comprehensive Family Medicine with Obstetrics alongside the team at RMS in Newport TN for a portion (approximately 20-30%) of the fellowship. This experience provides fellows with firsthand exposure to the realities of rural practice and prepares graduates for successful careers in resource-limited environments.

Junior Faculty Experience

In addition to the robust clinical training, fellows will additionally serve as junior faculty within the family medicine department and will have time dedicated to resident teaching, precepting, and supervision in both the clinic and the hospital. This will also include participation in quality improvement projects, population health initiatives, and leadership development.

Training Sites

• ETSU Health Bristol Family Medicine

  Primary ambulatory training site

  • Longitudinal continuity practice
  • Family medicine and women's health care
  • Imbedded community residency program
• Bristol Regional Medical Center

  • Labor and delivery
  • Obstetric surgery
  • Newborn nursery
  • Inpatient medicine
• Rural Medical Services 

  • Based in Newport, Tennessee
  • Rural Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC)
  • Rural FMOB immersion

Contact Information: