Patient Care
Each year approximately 6,500 babies are born at Banner Good Samaritan, and approximately 2,500 major gynecological operations are performed. Banner Good Sam's inpatient service includes intensive care labor rooms, birthing rooms and a special facility reserved for sophisticated antenatal evaluation. A $90 million renovation project was recently completed and much of the renovation benefits women and infant services. Banner Good Sam also houses an 80 bed NICU. A dedicated OB ultrasound services our triage unit 24 hours a day/7days a week.  A new labor and delivery unit was opened September 2006. An electronic medical record has been implemented along with digitally stored FHR data.

The Women's Center is a full-service, urban neighborhood clinic that connects residents with patients whom they follow for four years of their residency. The clinic is located on the hospital campus and registers more than 6,000 patient visits each year. This service provides primary care and continuity of care learning opportunities.

Unique Learning Opportunities
The program incorporates a full range of teaching activities including conferences, seminars, lectures, clinics, journal clubs and a visiting professor program. Individual interests are encouraged, i.e., community health, leadership training or urogynecology.

Residents have the opportunity to couple in-depth exposure within the main body of the discipline with a special concentration in certain subspecialty areas including gynecology, oncology, reproductive endocrinology, pathology, ultrasonography, urogynecology and public health.

Often neglected yet necessary subjects such as psychosomatic obstetrics and gynecology, administrative medicine, managed care, and legal and ethical considerations receive special attention.

Gynecologic pathology conferences are scheduled monthly (October thru May) with senior faculty member Dr. Makowski.

Academic participation includes preparing material for staff conferences, teaching in the ancillary areas of health care and undertaking projects of independent clinical investigation.

The Merrill W. Brown, M.D., Health Sciences Library at Banner Good Samaritan includes an expanding collection of more than 7,500 books and 650 journal subscriptions, with approximately 7,000 bound periodical volumes. Materials not available on campus are easily obtained via the local and national interlibrary loan system. Computers are available for house staff use in the department and Computer Resource Center, where seminars are conducted on the use of PCs and Macintosh computers. Library users may conduct their own database searches using OVID, Pub Med and other access systems. Searches provided by professional health sciences librarians are available, as is training in the use of various search systems.

The department library stands separate from the Merrill W. Brown, M.D., Health Sciences Library and contains in excess of 500 volumes of obstetrical and gynecological literature and current periodicals and is available 24 hours a day.

The Janet Harpel Memorial Teaching Laboratory, established for the department with private benefactions, offers television capabilities for recording and reviewing special lectures or conferences. Automated stations permit residents to view and study slide, tape or computer presentations for private or group instruction.

Conferences and Organization Membership
Monthly interdisciplinary conferences provide a forum for physicians-in-training to discuss current issues, address core curriculum and ethical problems related to medicine in general.

Residents are customarily invited to attend the frequent local and national medical conferences in the Phoenix area.

Residents are guest members of the Phoenix Obstetrical and Gynecological Society and are required to attend the monthly meetings.

If you choose, you can become a member of the Arizona Medical Association, and you are encouraged to enroll as a Junior Fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

The Residency Program at Banner Good Sam is closely allied with the University of Arizona Medical School in Tucson: the third-year University of Arizona clerkship is coordinated through Banner Good Sam; the medical center also offers externships for students from throughout the United States. There is also a maternal/fetal medicine fellowship shared between the two campuses, Phoenix and Tucson.

Good Samaritan's OB/GYN Residency Program has had continuous accreditation since 1951, and the program is in compliance with the new program requirements established in 2008. At the most recent RRC site visit the program was fully accredited and approved for four years.

Expectations
The residency program in obstetrics and gynecology is fundamentally a four-year program for those individuals who start immediately following successful completion of medical school. The program functions on a single campus and accepts seven categorical residents each year for a total of 28 residents.

We expect first-year residents to complete the full four years. There is no pyramid system.

Each resident is expected to complete a research project prior to graduation from this residency. Many result in regional or national presentation or publication.

"We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act,
but a habit."

Aristotle