Global Women’s Health and Equity

Program Director: Dr. Rachel Spitzer
Staff, Mount Sinai Hospital
Vice Chair, Global Women’s Health
Director, AMPATH - University of Toronto
Associate Professor, Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, University of Toronto
Tel: 416-586-4822
Email: rachel.spitzer@sinaihealth.ca

Contact: Joe George
joseph.george@utoronto.ca
Tel: 416-946-0306

Site: Women’s College Hospital (Toronto); Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (Eldoret, Kenya)

Application: Submit an application form. Applications will be accepted until August 15, 2024 for a July 1, 2025 start date.
** Applications must be graduates of Canadians or American Obstetrics and Gynaecology residency programs

Please forward a CV as well as a letter of interest in our fellowship program. Additionally, please provide 3 written references (electronically signed PDF).

To All Applicants: If you have also applied to the U.S match through the National Residency Matching Program (NRMP), please be advised that the University of Toronto is a participating institution and adheres to the match policy. The policy states that "Applicants who have matched to a program or have accepted a position during the Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program (SOAP), shall not apply for, discuss, interview for, or accept a concurrent year position in another program prior to the NRMP granting the requested waiver." More information is accessible at http://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2018-MPA-Specialities-Matching-Service.pdf.

Program Information

Note: you can download the full program document here.

This fellowship program is a 2-year certificate sub-specialty training program. It is run in partnership with the Academic Model for Providing Access to Healthcare (AMPATH) Reproductive Health program in Western Kenya and our partner institution, Indiana University, and has been developed and supported through Women’s College Hospital in Toronto.

A minimum 12 months of clinical rotations will be completed in Canada throughout the fellowship training, with the majority taking place within the greater Toronto area. Rotations will focus on areas of practice that are relevant to the understanding and clinical care of underserved and marginalized women in Canada, or to enhance skills needed to practice in resource poor settings. For a brief description of rotations, click here. The Fellow will run a longitudinal general Obstetrics & Gynaecology clinic serving a referral population of underserved and marginalized women in Toronto, two half days per month, at Women’s College Hospital.

Fellows will be encouraged to complete between 9-12 months (as a single or multiple placements) as a Team Leader in Eldoret, Kenya under the supervision of a local AMPATH faculty member, in collaboration with the AMPATH Consortium. Placements in other locations can be discussed on a case-by-case basis with individual fellows.

The Fellow will provide a monthly seminar on Women’s Health topics at Christie Refugee Welcome Centre, a Toronto organization that provides temporary shelter and a safe haven for refugee families from all ethnic, racial and religious backgrounds. Opportunities for development of novel partnerships and outreach are also available. Protected time will be provided to conduct research. The breakdown of the program will be 70% clinical and 30% research. Fellows will be expected to participate in both ongoing research projects locally and within AMPATH, as well as initiate new projects.

Objectives:

To train Obstetrician/Gynaecologists who are committed and have the clinical skills required to improve the health of marginalized women locally and internationally
To create leaders in global women’s reproductive health in the areas of research, policy and advocacy
To build a cadre of academic Obstetricians/Gynaecologists who can compete successfully for grants and academic university positions

For a full list of the program’s goals and objectives, click here.

The Settings:

Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (Eldoret, Kenya)

Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH) is the second largest teaching hospital in Eldoret, Kenya. Obstetrical volume consists of twelve thousand deliveries per year, many of which are referred from outside institutions. There are over five hundred gynaecologic surgeries conducted annually and over seven thousand reproductive‐health related outpatient visits. The placement in Kenya through AMPATH also includes involvement in community women’s health care throughout the AMPATH catchment area, which serves over 3.5 million Kenyans.

Toronto, Canada

For the majority of the local rotations, the fellow will spend their time serving the patient population of downtown Toronto. As Canada’s largest city and one of the most multicultural cities in the world, Toronto is home to many communities of vulnerable women. In particular, this includes indigenous women, the homeless and under housed, women living with HIV/AIDS, women with severe and persistent mental illness and addictions, and women from within the LGBTQ community.