A Note to 2023-2024 Applicants
Our goal is to provide an equitable interview season for applicants. We are dedicated to a virtual interview season as recommendations by the Council on Resident Education in Obstetrics and Gynecology (CREOG) and the Association of Professors of Gynecology and Obstetrics (APGO) for the 2023-2024 obstetrics and gynecology residency application cycle. This includes the following:
- Application submission deadline October 1, 2023
- Initial interview offers will be sent on Tuesday, October 24, 2023
- Begin interviews no earlier than October 31, 2023
- Our first interview day will be Friday, December 1, 2023
- As applicants cancel or change interview dates, we will invite additional applicants off of our waitlist
- Program interview invitations are limited to the number of interview slots available
- Allow 48 hours after an interview invitation for the applicant to accept or decline. If there is no response after 48 hours, the spot will be offered to the next applicant.
- Release final status to applicants (interview, reject, waitlist) no later than December 2, 2023
- Commit to a completely virtual interview season for all applicants, including local students.
We support CREOG/APGO and believe that virtual interviews promote equity of opportunity regardless of geographic location or financial means. We require annual implicit bias training for every member of our selection committee and remain committed to our tradition of holistic review. We have a highly competitive program and deeply value diversity and reflecting our local community.
Applications are only considered and accepted through ERAS (Electronic Residency Application Service). Applications must upload to ERAS by October 1, 2023: a personal statement, CV, medical school transcript, USMLE transcript, MSPE, and letters of recommendation from at least two clinical faculty. We participate in the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) match to fill our 6 PGY1 positions. All applications must be submitted electronically through ERAS to be considered.
We plan to interview on select Mondays and Fridays from December 1, 2023 to January 22, 2024. Our residents will be hosting virtual socials the night before each scheduled interview from 6-7pm PST. Our specific dates are being finalized in conjunction with other programs at our institution.
Mission Statement
Our mission is to train compassionate, skilled, and socially responsible obstetricians and gynecologists who practice thoughtful evidence-based medicine. Our program strives to advance women’s health care and health equity through advocacy, research, quality improvement, community outreach and the intentional recruitment and retention of under-represented minority physicians in medicine. We are dedicated to providing excellent care to the diverse Oakland community and to engaging in the active pursuit of reproductive and social justice.
We offer an academically rigorous curriculum that aims to prepare graduates with foundational knowledge and skills necessary for both generalist and fellowship career paths. Our residency is grounded in a culture of respect and promotes teamwork, interdisciplinary partnerships, and professionalism. Our dynamic cultural humility and health equity curriculum equips our residents and faculty with the abilities to address personal biases, to work toward closing health disparity gaps, and to improve the quality of care for our patients. We value pursual of individual passions and strive to cultivate professional growth through strong peer and faculty mentorship.
Program Overview
Kaiser Permanente Oakland attracts applicants who are looking for a combination of superb academic training in clinical medicine and surgery, a diverse community of colleagues and patients and a nurturing learning environment. We are committed to offering an experience that is challenging and supportive and a curriculum that is balanced and focused on individual pursuits. Our goal is to create a broad skill set that prepares our graduates to provide outstanding health care and pursue life-long professional growth.
The “East Bay”, the greater area encompassing the cities of Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, and Richmond, is one of the most ethnically diverse places in the United States. Over 150 languages are spoken here. We are proud to have our patients, staff, residents, fellows, and faculty reflect this diversity. Recruitment of those individuals who are traditionally underrepresented in medicine is at the core of our mission. It is our goal to promote equity in health care for all individuals and to eliminate disparities in health outcomes.
Training Environment
Residents learn and provide care within Kaiser Permanente, a world leader in health care delivery, and Highland General Hospital, a national leader in trauma care. This combination of experiences provides unparalleled opportunities for patient advocacy and quality improvement work in health care disparities. We are proud of the quality of education our residents receive. They graduate as highly skilled surgeons with extensive experience in minimally invasive surgical techniques. Our obstetrics training is multidisciplinary with a full scope of teaching attendings: midwives who focus on physiologic birth, OB generalists who are experts in evidence-based labor management, and perinatologists who oversee our complicated antepartum service. Our family planning team offers a full range of contraception and abortion training. We place a priority on resident learning. Our residents have protected teaching time where our faculty use flipped classrooms, hands-on learning and simulation to enrich the learning experience. Kaiser Permanente Obstetrics and Gynecology program in Oakland has more than 70+ full-time faculty who provide a supportive yet challenging educational environment. Residents work closely with all sub-specialists including:
• Chronic Pelvic Pain & Vulvo-vaginal Disorders
• Family Planning including complicated contraception and second trimester abortions
• Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery
• Gynecologic Oncology
• Maternal-Fetal Medicine
• Minimally Invasive Surgery
• Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology
• Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility
• Sexual Health
• Transgender Health
In addition, we have faculty with special interests in the following areas: HIV, Vulvar Dysplasia and High-Risk Breast Care. Kaiser Permanente Oakland is the regional Fetal and Placental Pathology referral center and we host Ob/Gyn residents from our other facilities to learn from our outstanding pathology colleagues.
Collaborative Care
We were the first Kaiser Permanente site, and one of the first in the nation, to create a collaborative multidisciplinary transgender clinic. We are proud to provide equitable, compassionate and high-quality medical care to our transgender patients and their families. Our pediatric transgender clinic (PROUD) provides multi-disciplinary care for pediatric patients and their families as they transition. Residents participate in patient care in these transgender clinics on ambulatory clinic rotations during 2nd through 4th year and receive transgender surgical experience on their gynecologic surgery rotations. Many residents have furthered their work with the transgender population with research and quality improvement projects focused on the continuum of transgender care.
We have two additional multi-disciplinary clinics. One for women with HIV, and one for patients at high risk of breast and ovarian cancer. These clinics offer patients a unique experience being able to see multiple specialists in one visit who have met before their appointment to review their care. Want to learn more? High Risk Breast Clinic and Transgender Health Care Clinic. Additionally, our Salud En Español clinic offers bilingual and bicultural care for our Latina population. Our residents rotate through these specialty clinics and can customize their experience as they become senior residents.
Teaching and Learning
Residents are involved in teaching on a daily basis. The evidence supports that you learn the most when you teach! We host UCSF students throughout the year for their 6-week core Obstetrics and Gynecology rotation. Additionally, we have eight UCSF students for their entire 3rd year on our campus and our OB/GYN department is responsible for their didactics. This program is called the Kaiser Longitudinal Integrative Clerkship (KLIC) and these UCSF students choose our site for their third-year clinical experience. Our residency program also hosts sub-interns from medical schools across the country which leads to a robust teaching and learning environment for our residents. To further support our residents in the role of the teacher, the residents attend local and regional training sessions in Communication, Feedback, Leadership, and Teaching.
Kaiser Permanente Oakland is the primary site for our joint Kaiser/UCSF FPMRS fellowship with fellows who serve as mentors and surgical teachers for our residents. We are closely affiliated with the UC San Francisco School of Medicine (UCSF), and the UC Berkeley School of Public Health and the UCSF/UCB Joint Medical Program.
Community
We are dedicated to our local and global community. We encourage residents to participate in volunteer activities both locally and internationally. There are numerous opportunities and the 2 elective months allow residents to create their own experiences and tailor their learning to their individual areas of interest. Click here to learn more about Elective Rotations and Community Service and Advocacy page.
Summary
We are strongly committed to providing a supportive and challenging learning environment with graduated resident responsibility. We are dedicated to providing new and innovative ways for our residents to challenge themselves and become competent and caring Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
We are extremely proud of our unique and diverse residency program and are honored to share it with you.
Sincerely,
Dr. Laura Minikel, Dr. Erika Deraleau, Dr. Lasha Pierce, Dr. Eve Zaritsky, Dr. Maria Woods, Dr. Leslie Hardy Hood, Dr. Betsy O’Donnell, and Dr. Christie Cooksey
Download our Program Brochure for more information about Obstetrics & Gynecology at Oakland.