will continue this trend with innovative maternal care and a multi-disciplinary approach to patient care. The process for initiating a new fellowship is a tall feat! Initially I began with completing meetings with providers from both the University of Louisville and Norton Healthcare to see what we would be capable of providing for training sites. I then was required by the ACGME( Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education) to complete a series of forms about the services provided at the institutions to ensure we would have enough patient volume to provide the education needed for new trainees. From there, the fun part began! Starting from the ground up, I worked with my team to create rotation schedules, learning objectives and didactic training schedules. This represented a mock schedule over the three years of training to ensure that all fellowship requirements were met. An interview was completed with representatives from the ACGME for an official site visit. We received our initial program accreditation in April 2024. We recruited during the summer of 2024 and matched our first fellow to start August 2025. TA-DA! needed care for our patients. We also hope this will directly impact those patients who are currently in underserved areas by ultimately increasing the available workforce throughout the state. The continued collaboration with Norton Healthcare through obstetrics will also strengthen the bond between these hospital systems and we hope that will continue to grow in the future. I foresee great opportunities to become a leader in maternal care throughout the region. Ultimately, my goal is to provide a strongly supportive learning environment within the MFM community. There are many options for training sites across the country, and I want Kentucky to stand out as a highly desired location. Right now, I think Louisville is a hidden gem! There is so much diversity and mix of cultures that you would see in a larger metropolis, yet the city remains family friendly and inclusive to people of all backgrounds. This diversity encourages innovation in the way we provide care for our patients, and we will continue to strive to be an ally in improving maternal health. I started my journey with a passion for educating my patients, and I hope to ignite that passion and commitment in our trainees.
Dr. Tonismae practices maternal-fetal medicine with the University of Louisville School of Medicine.( non-member)
Currently there is one additional MFM fellowship only, at UK. We hope that together we can continue to attract physicians to Kentucky and improve care for those patients that need it the most. We are excited to offer a different approach to medical training. We are collaborating with Norton Children’ s to allow training in both academic and private practice models as well as expose our trainees to complex neonatal cases. This collaborative design has already been successful within our pediatric department, and we look forward to continuing this within obstetrics. I am excited to work with other departments in the training of our fellows including neonatology, cardiology and anesthesiology to name a few. I want our trainees to experience fully the importance of multi-disciplinary partnership to improve patient care and maternal / fetal outcomes.
The long-term impact of this program has the potential to recruit more obstetricians and MFM providers to Kentucky to provide much
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