While family planning services such as contraception are available for most patients through providers in obstetrics and gynecology and family medicine, the UT Southwestern Complex Contraception Program provides contraceptive counseling for patients with medical comorbidities or unique considerations who seek to prevent pregnancy.

We offer telemedicine and in-person visits at the Lowe Foundation Women’s Center by

Dr. Courtney Baker, a specialist in complex family planning.

At UT Southwestern, we have both dermatologists and gynecologists, such as Dr. Meredith McClure, who treat patients with vulvar conditions.

Under the leadership of Rachael Medrano, our Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery Clinic now offers care for peri-partum women experiencing pelvic floor dysfunction through what is colloquially referred to as the PETAL Program.

Appropriate ObGyn clinics will be receiving brochures to display for this new offering.

“We are honored to receive this award recognizing our efforts in underserved areas of Dallas County,” said program leader Dr. David Nelson, Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Chief of the Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine. “Through partnership with UT Southwestern and Parkland Health, our team has developed a program that focuses on positively impacting our local community through improving maternal health care after birth, which is a time that many patients are most vulnerable.”

The Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, with the Green Center, is proudly now ranked #7 in NIH funding. This ranking is up from # 17 last year.

Congratulations to the faculty who have received funding and contributed to these accolades.

Young adolescents face different challenges in pregnancy compared with their older teenage peers and adults that are sometimes exacerbated by high rates of obesity, a new study by UT Southwestern researchers suggests.

The findings, published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology MFM, could highlight at-risk populations for targeted prevention efforts.

“This study highlights the unique perinatal characteristics of a population that are not often studied in the U.S. – adolescents between the ages of 10 and 15. Knowledge of these patients’ characteristics and outcomes shows that we have opportunities to intervene to prevent pregnancy and make a real difference in their well-being,” said Dr. Anne Ambia, Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at UT Southwestern, who co-led the study with Dr. David Nelson, Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Division Chief of Maternal-Fetal Medicine at UT Southwestern.

To learn more about this younger population, Drs. Ambia and Nelson, along with colleagues at UT Southwestern and Parkland Health, searched medical records for patients under age 35 who gave birth for the first time between January 2010 and May 2021 at Parkland Health, a safety net hospital that serves patients in Dallas and is UT Southwestern’s primary teaching facility. Of the 33,391 patients identified, 10,894 were adolescents under age 20, and 868 of them were 15 years old or younger at the time of delivery.

Each year, thousands of patients undergo urodynamic studies. Typically, these studies are done using aqueous gel during the placement of trans-urethral catheters. However, even with the gel, some patients experience discomfort during the tests.

Christy Hicks and Drs. Schaffer, Pruszynski, and Rahn sought to determine if instead, lidocaine gel could be used to decrease discomfort and not interfere with the accuracy of these tests. See the study.

Drs. Jessica Shields, Lisa Chao, Stephanie Chang, Kim Kho and Laura Kenyon collaborated on the study, "Ice-POP: Ice Packs for Postoperative Pain: A Randomized Controlled Trial" for the Journal of Minimally Invasive Gynecology.

Dr. Catherine Spong and MS4 Lisa Thiele co-authored this paper titled, "Inclusion of Pregnant and Lactating People in Clinical Research: Lessons Learned and Opportunities" for Obstetrics and Gynecology Clinics of North America.

Drs. Blaine Holloway, Alyssa Mercadel, David Miller, and Jayanthi Lea's work was recently accepted for publishing in Gynecologic Oncology. The study, "Isolated para-aortic nodal recurrence after treatment of early stage cervical carcinoma," will run in the journal's March issue.

Dr. Maria Florian-Rodriguez worked alongside other researchers on "Smooth muscle contribution to vaginal viscoelastic response" for the Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials.

Dr. Christina Herrera co-authored the study, "Preterm Birth and Corticotrophin-Releasing Hormone as a Placental Clock" for Endocrinology.

Dr. David Miller collaborated with various other authors on, "Uterine Neoplasms, Version 1.2023, NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology" for the Official Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network.

We're proud to showcase our faculty members who were recognized among DFW's "Best Doctors" and "Super Doctors" in 2021-2022.

While such honors are nice, they're only acknowledgements of what we do best - caring for patients - and are confirmations that we truly have the best ObGyn physicians in the Metroplex.

These new counter cards will be on display in clinics very soon.

Congratulations, doctors!

Our faculty and their work are often referenced by journalists regarding a range of topics. See some examples of recent features below:

Our faculty have been busy writing excellent patient-centered information for UT Southwestern's MedBlog. Check out our recent blogs below:

*Dr. Mauskar has a secondary appointment with the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

If you've had a baby at UT Southwestern (CUH or St. Paul), we would love to feature your family in a photo gallery on our patient-facing website.

We would love to share our news with even more people! Feel free to pass along this link so that others subscribe: Copy and paste this link to share.

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