Fellowship aims to boost rural obstetrics training

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Rural hospitals are closing birthing centers at an alarming rate, often because they just can't staff them. A new U of M partnership with CentraCare will create a fellowship program to train family physicians to handle complicated deliveries of babies.

As more Minnesota rural communities lose local obstetrics services, the University of Minnesota Medical School and central Minnesota’s CentraCare hospital are teaming up to equip more rural providers with the skills they need to handle complicated births.

The partnership is launching the new one-year family medicine obstetrics fellowship next summer to prepare family medicine physicians to provide advanced prenatal, maternity and newborn care in rural communities. The only other fellowship of this kind in Minnesota is at Essentia Health in Duluth.

Keri Bergeson, director of rural programs for the University of Minnesota Department of Family Medicine and Communit...