Monday, November 2, 2009

future abortion providers


Do you ever wonder how abortion providers get to becoming abortion providers?

Well, in my experience, they come about it one of two ways. Either they (1) realized later in their career that this is an important issue and want to get involved to help meet the serious demand or (2) they seek out training from the very start of their medical career.

I, and many of my colleagues, am the latter. We seek out this training, and in many instances, we demand it. With the help of organizations like Medical Students for Choice, we are able to foster curriculum changes and educate our classmates and community on abortion care. Additionally, we research residencies that train us in abortion. For me personally, I will not apply to a residency program that will not train me.

Why? Because, to me, abortion is another part of comprehensive women’s well care. It would be strange to go into an Ob/Gyn residency that wouldn’t train me in how to do a cesarean. And so it should also be deemed odd that this same residency would not train me in abortion care-a procedure than 1 in 4 women will have in her lifetime, the same procedure to complete a partial miscarriage, the same procedure used to save a woman’s life if needed. So why wouldn’t we demand this training? And why, more importantly, isn’t it offered everywhere in all Ob/Gyn training programs??

There is still a lot of work to be done, but know this: there are many of us who want to be Ob/Gyns and want to be able to provide all services to our patients—and this includes abortions.

Support MSFC! Support Ryan Residency Programs! Many of us are ready to be the next generation of abortion providers.

9 comments:

  1. I still don't understand why ab education doesn't operate on an opt-out system. This reminds me of when my family moved to VA and my sister's HS biology teacher prefaced the course with "I don't believe in evolution, but I'm required to teach it anyway." You don't have to agree with or even use everything you learn, but damnit, you should be learning!

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  2. The link doesn't seem to be working: it's www.ms4c.org.

    And I totally agree anti-anti! It's another example of how politics affects medical care! (ie. FDA approval of Plan B)

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  3. anti-anti, that's hilarious/sad. Not exactly related but this made me think of my good friend whose school board (in an Atlanta suburb) ordered that the district insert stickers in all the bio textbooks' section on evolution, that read "evolution is only a theory", etc. Weird shit!

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  4. VF, I noticed the broken link too -- fixed it!

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  5. If a few years ago I had not decided not to continue with pre-med (I realized I was unlikely to make it to med school) I would right now strongly be considering becoming an abortion provider.

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  6. Wait! What about the third option where non-MDs become providers because they're sick of all this stoooopid, Anti shit impeding access and always thought the Book Mobile was onto something so righteous?

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  7. And then there's the documented fourth option where MDs think they're going to provide abortion services but are dissuaded by the dozens of things that make abortion a dangerous activist stance instead of a simple medical specialty. Somewhere between the people who couldn't give a shit about women and those of us who'll keep at this work no matter what, there are those who mean well and want to do good but aren't looking for that kind of nonsense in their lives, and I can't really fault them.

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This is not a debate forum -- there are hundreds of other sites for that. This is a safe space for abortion care providers and one that respects the full spectrum of reproductive choices; comments that are not in that spirit will either wind up in the spam filter or languish in the moderation queue.