Women’s Healthcast: Fourth Trimester: Postpartum Mental Health, featuring Ryan McDonald, MD

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McDonald discusses new postpartum depression medication with CBS 58 News

Earlier this summer, the United States Food and Drug Administration approved a new pill to treat postpartum depression. Ryan McDonald, MD, clinical professor in the Division of Academic Specialists in Ob-Gyn, spoke with CBS 58 News about the medication.

“Dr. Ryan McDonald also notes that postpartum depression is underdiagnosed and under-treated. The cost, and if the pill is safe for breastfeeding mothers, is still unknown.”

Watch the whole story here.

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McDonald promoted to Clinical Professor

Congratulations to Ryan McDonald, MD, of the UW Ob-Gyn Division of Academic Specialists in Ob-Gyn! The UW SMPH Clinician Teacher Track Appointments and Promotions Committee recently met and overwhelmingly endorsed his promotion to Clinical Professor.

His promotion will be effective June 18, 2023. Congratulations on this well-deserved honor, Dr. McDonald!

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UW Ob-Gyn presents at ACOG District VI meeting

Many people from across the UW Department of Ob-Gyn were active participants in the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists District VI annual meeting in Chicago September 16-18, 2022! Just a few of their amazing contributions:

Ryan McDonald, MD, associate professor in the Division of Academic Specialists in Ob-Gyn, served as the District VI CME Representative on the annual meeting planning committee.

Heidi Brown, MD, MAS, associate professor in the Division of Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery, presented “Talking About and Treating Bowel Incontinence.”

UW Ob-Gyn Gynecologic Oncology Fellow Matt Wagar, MD presented “Access to Risk Reducing Gynecology Surgery.”

Cholene Espinoza, MD, assistant professor in the Division of Academic Specialists in Ob-Gyn, presented “Recognition and Resuscitation of Critically Ill Obstetric Patients.”

Resident Margaret Harrison, MD, PGY-3, presented as an ACOG Junior Fellow.

One former resident, Ashley Turner, presented Updates in Family Planning, and another, Kristin Lyerly, joined a panel called Grassroots in Advocacy (and serves as the District VI Treasurer). 

Congratulations to all, incredible work!

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Presentations, posters, and more at the 2022 CREOG/APGO Annual Meeting!

UW Ob-Gyn faculty, residents, and affiliated medical students with interest and expertise in medical education showcased their work at the CREOG/APGO Annual Meeting​! The conference, which was organized around the theme “Together Again, Together Forever: Med Ed Family Reunion”, took place in Orlando, Florida March 9-12. Some of the exciting highlights from our department:

Ryan McDonald, MD, of the UW Ob-Gyn Division of Academic Specialists in Ob-Gyn, graduated from the APGO Academic Scholars and Leaders Program! Read more about his experience in the program and how UW Ob-Gyn Faculty Development Funds supported his training!

Laura Jacques, MD, director of medical student education and assistant professor in the Division of Academic Specialists in Ob-Gyn, presented during the breakout session “Getting the Right Ingredients for Your Sauce: An Innovative Tool for Applicant-Program Compatibility”. (Presenters: Seine Chiang, MD, Jesse Rafel, MD, Jenci Hawthorne, MD, Jennifer Hamm, MD, Laura Jacques, MD, Lauren Holt, Medical Student)

Jacques and Ryan Spencer, MD, MS, residency program director and gynecologic oncology fellowship director and associate professor in the Division of Gynecologic Oncology, presented during the breakout session “A Crying Shame: A Structured Debriefing Workshop to Reduce Second-Victim Syndrome in Obstetrics and Gynecology Residents”. (Presenters: Laura Jacques, MD, Beverly Gray, MD, Samantha Hoffman, MD, Tamika Alexander, MD, Jessica Francis, MD, Ryan Spencer, MD, MS)

Jacques also co-authored the oral abstract “The More Cooks in the Kitchen the Better the Sauce? Impact of an Abortion VCAT Workshop on Medical Students”. (Authors: Elise Cowley, Medical Student, Jessie Chen, MD, Jessika Ralph, MD, MSCI, Allison Linton, MD, MPH, Sarah Hutto, MD, MPH, Laura Jacques, MD)

People in the department also brought many posters to the conference, including one that received second place in the conference poster awards!

Congratulations to the authors of “Ingredients for teaching confidence: A Fourth-year medical student clinical teaching elective”, which earned second place in the CREOG/APGO Annual Meeting Poster Awards! Authors: Kristen Kreh, John Poehlmann, Katharina Stewart, Amy Godecker, Laura Jacques

“Opinions at the Thanksgiving Table: A comparison of medical student and resident attitudes about abortion” – Jessie Chen, Elise Cowley, Jessika Ralph, Amy Godecker, Daniel Pellicer, Laura Jacques

“An Educational Program to Implement a Well-Validated Screening Tool for Opioid Use Disorder in Pregnancy” – Ryan McDonald, Samantha Haefner, Kaley Gyorfi, Heidi Brown

Congratulations to all on an impressive showing at the conference!

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Faculty Development Feature: McDonald graduates from APGO Academic Scholars and Leaders program

Ryan McDonald, MD, of the UW Ob-Gyn Division of Academic Specialists in Ob-Gyn, graduated from the American Professors of Gynecology and Obstetrics Academic Scholars and Leaders Program during the 2022 APGO/CREOG annual meeting! McDonald used funding from the UW Ob-Gyn Faculty Development Committee’s Faculty Development Funding Program to support his experience in the APGO program.

Each fiscal year, the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology Faculty Development Committee makes available a total of $10,000 for professional development. Faculty may submit applications at any time (until funds are exhausted for the current fiscal year).

Read more about Dr. Ryan McDonald’s experience with the Faculty Development Funding Program, and learn how you can apply for faculty development funds here!

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Why were you interested in the APGO Academic Scholars and Leaders program?

The American Professors of Gynecology and Obstetrics (APGO) has a 15-month program that's called the Academic Scholars and Leaders program. It’s one of multiple faculty development programs that they offer and it helps academic and even private practice ob-gyns develop scholarship in terms of developing academic projects, research, and leadership skills. Over the course of 15 months, we attend several seminars and trainings on ways to improve leadership and team building, as well as how to turn our normal clinical work into scholarship.

How have you been able to apply things you learned and skills you developed in your training to your work?

There have been many things that about the program that I that I would point to that have been very valuable. The two that most significantly come to mind are developing research skills and turning clinical work into research, and how to improve education for our learners: medical students, residents, and fellows.

I’ve gotten to have these really hands-on and detailed seminars to talk about the best practices for integrating teaching into the clinical and the operating room type settings, how to meet learners where they're at, engagement strategies. That has led to much more polished presentations, and a lot of thinking about how to maximize the educational and the enjoyment experience, particularly as we have had to adapt to virtual modes of interacting.

On the research front, I had very minimal research experience pretty much limited to the projects that I did during residency 10 years ago until the time that I started this course and transitioned my career to have that be more of a focal point. That really has led to a very robust opportunity to do research in multiple different clinical arenas. And it really has enlivened my clinical experience, I get to talk to my patients about the research that I’m doing, when I invite people to participate in my colleagues’ research, I can really kind of back it up with more context. And to be able to better navigate all the scaffolding that goes with research, that is something that I think really takes some skill, and that's something that the ASL program has really done a great job of helping to give me.

Do you feel like skills and information you learned in the training benefit health care providers or trainees in the broader department?

It certainly has benefited my colleagues and my trainees because of the skills that I’ve gathered. I think it's also benefiting our patients and our region. As a result of this program and this funding to collaborate with other providers and clinics across the region, we are part of a Midwest substance use in pregnancy collaborative that was impart born out of this work. We’re collaborating with people in Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa, and Milwaukee.

Would you recommend this program to your colleagues?

 The ASL program is something that I would recommend for anybody who is interested in doing more scholarship or leadership in an academic setting. We do have other faculty members in our department who have participated in that program before as well, so it's great to have some alumni here who I can reach out to when I have questions.

In terms of other faculty doing it, I would love to see a UW-Madison faculty there every couple of years, I think we get so much out of it and people who come back really are enriched and then have a lot to offer. I would strongly recommend people consider applying.

Would you recommend the Faculty Development Grant to others in the department?

Absolutely! In terms of the process itself, I’ll just start by saying I have known about this for the whole time that I’ve been here, this grant has been well advertised. I’m told that it is almost never completely used for the year, so there are almost always more opportunities for people to take advantage of this. It is a relatively straightforward application process, and I actually found it to be very valuable as somebody who had not done really any significant grant writing, to have to revise my way of presenting my proposal in a way that you know seems valuable to a funding group.

I would strongly encourage anybody who is considering doing research on the small to medium scale to consider using this using this opportunity. I think it's really easy, I think that it's educational, you'll learn a lot from doing it. And I think you can you can expect to be really successful with this with this grant application.

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McDonald published in Neurotoxicology and Teratology

“A socioecological framework for engaging substance-using pregnant persons in longitudinal research: Multi-stakeholder perspectives” sought feedback from community stakeholders, including people with lived experience of substance use, to understand facilitators and barriers to recruiting and retaining pregnant people who use substances in research studies.

“Stakeholders prioritized stigma, loss of confidentiality, legal consequences, and instability (e.g., homeles​sness and poverty) as important barriers that prevent substance-using persons from enrolling in research studies.”

Read the whole study here. Great work, Dr. McDonald!

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McDonald published in Neurotoxicology and Teratology

Congratulations to Ryan McDonald, MD, of the UW Ob-Gyn Division of Academic Specialists in Ob-Gyn, who recently co-authored an article published in Neurotoxicology and Teratology!

The paper “Recruitment and retention of pregnant women in prospective birth cohort studies: A scoping review and content analysis of the literature” sought to review the literature for best practices for recruiting a cohort of pregnant women.

“The purpose of this scoping review was to map the literature by comprehensively identifying and analyzing the existing knowledge on recruitment and retention of pregnant women in birth cohort studies. As a result, we were able to present a large and diverse body of literature that identified key concepts as well as gaps in the research, such as longitudinal studies reporting on retention practices that engage pregnant women in research beyond their pregnancy. Recruitment and retention efforts can be costly and labor-intensive, yet worthwhile in obtaining the long-term commitment of study participants and critically important in achieving sustainability and study success.”

The paper offers a set of recommendations and best practices for recruitment and retention of pregnant women in birth cohort studies, which offers great value in planning and implementation of studies in this population. 

Read the whole study here. Incredible work, Dr. McDonald!

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Spencer, Silva, McDowell serve on CREOG rural training panel

On September 23, 2020, members of the UW Ob-Gyn residency team led the panel discussion “Increasing the Rural OB/GYN Pipeline: a Pathway for Rural Track Training”, presented by the Council on Resident Education in Obstetrics and Gynecology!

Residency program director Ryan Spencer, MD, program manager Jody Silva, M.Ed, and resident Laura McDowell, MD, PGY-4 presented to over 40 residency program directors and department chairs from across the country. They were also joined by Denny Hartung, MD, a training partner from Western Wisconsin Health.

As the first residency program in the nation with a rural training track, our residency team presented data with perspectives from key stakeholders on how to develop and maintain rural ob-gyn training programs. This talk was especially important in light of increasing disparities in rural women’s health care.

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