Obstetrical Experiences

Our residency program offers robust, hands-on training in obstetrics, empowering residents to provide full-spectrum care for our clinic's patients from early prenatal visits through delivery and postpartum.Resident looking through a microscope

Beginning in their second year, our residents care for pregnant patients in their continuity clinic, providing full-spectrum obstetric care, from the initial prenatal visit to delivery, under the guidance of our Family Medicine Obstetrics board certified faculty. While on OB Call, residents triage and manage labor and perform deliveries for our continuity patients who present to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital’s Labor and Delivery unit. They also provide postpartum care to both mother and newborn during their hospital stay.

To prepare for this continuity experience, residents complete a dedicated four-week rotation on the labor and delivery unit at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital during their intern year. During this rotation, they work closely with OBGYN residents, fellows, and attendings, gaining hands-on experience in labor management, delivery, and postpartum care. Residents also receive structured obstetrics training during orientation and throughout residency via didactics that include both lectures and procedural workshops.

Residents gain additional experience through rotations in our Women’s Health Specialty Clinic, where they help manage a broad range of gynecologic and prenatal concerns in the outpatient setting. Elective time is also available for residents who wish to pursue further training in women’s health.

Each year, one resident serves as OB Chief, working alongside FM-OB faculty to coordinate OB Call, lead women’s health related teaching during didactics, along with many other roles to coordinate and optimize the high-level care we provide to our pregnant patients.

Pediatric Experiences

Our residents receive extensive training in pediatric care through a variety of outpatient, inpatient, and emergency medicine experiences integrated throughout their curriculum and continuity clinic.Residents facing the camera holding up plastic infants

Each year, residents complete dedicated outpatient pediatric rotations. First and third year residents spend two weeks at the CHKD General Academic Pediatrics Clinic, located within walking distance of Ghent Family Medicine. There, they provide care through well-child and acute visits while working on a team alongside pediatric residents and attendings. In their second year, residents spend two weeks with a community pediatrician, gaining outpatient experience outside of the academic setting.

In their first year, residents spend three weeks on the inpatient pediatric service at Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters (CHKD), the only full-service freestanding children’s hospital in Virginia. Working under a pediatric attending, they join a team of pediatric residents, managing a wide range of conditions at a hospital with access to all pediatric subspecialties.

First year residents also complete a two-week rotation in the Level I Newborn Nursery at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, where they attend deliveries and round daily on newborns as part of a multidisciplinary team. During their second year, residents spend two weeks in the CHKD Emergency Department. CHKD is home to the region's only pediatric level 1 trauma center, allowing residents to gain experience in the highest level of care available to pediatric trauma patients.

Pediatric experience continues through our continuity clinics, Ghent Family Medicine and Portsmouth Family Medicine, both of which provide full-spectrum pediatric primary care. Both clinics accept pediatric patients of all ages, from the newborn having their first visit after discharge from the nursery to adulthood. Residents also care for newborns they delivered during OB Call, as detailed in the obstetrical experiences section.