Reproductive Health Care and Advocacy Fellowship

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Fellowship Description

This one-year fellowship aims to develop leaders who will promote and teach full-spectrum women’s reproductive health care within family medicine. The fellowship is based in New York City at the Institute for Family Health affiliated residencies: Beth Israel and Harlem Family Medicine Residency Programs. The fellow will participate in the following activities:

The Fellow will spend one year as a “trainer in training,” learning to perform abortion and related procedures (IUD and implant insertions, first-trimester sonography, medication abortion, endometrial biopsy, and manual vacuum aspiration of the uterus) and learning to teach these procedures to others. Most of this training will take place at Phillips Family Practice. The fellow will also spend 10 to 15 days at a high volume abortion site, getting training and becoming a trainer.
The fellow will work five patient-care sessions (two and one-half days) per week at a continuity care site at the Institute for Family Health (IFH), seeing continuity care patients. The fellow will work two procedure sessions at an IFH site learning to perform and then teach a wide range of procedures.
The fellow will develop teaching skills by precepting family medicine residents one session per week, learning to teach and give feedback under the supervision of the residency faculty. As part of the faculty development aspect of the fellowship, the fellow may take on an intern as an advisee, under the supervision of the fellowship director. The fellow may attend faculty development sessions for junior faculty at the Beth Israel Residency.
The fellow will develop teaching and leadership skills by giving presentations during the residency curriculum sessions and at academic family medicine meetings. The fellow will participate in advocacy projects that promote access to reproductive health care in family medicine, with guidance from the Reproductive Health Access Project (RHAP). The fellow, in collaboration with residents and faculty, will work on the on-going projects with a goal of preparing presentations for academic meetings and publications for family medicine journals.
The fellow will work with Medical Students for Choice (MS4C), helping them build their local chapters and engaging residents in doing projects with the medical students. The fellow will connect MS4C students with students who volunteer at New York University (NYU) School of Medicine’s free clinic, promoting the free clinic’s expansion of reproductive health services for uninsured women.
The fellow will participate in working in and sustaining a student run free clinic that provides abortion, in collaboration with RHAP staff, NYU medical students, fellowship faculty, and a community advisory board. The fellow will participate in the “reproductive health team” that will perform abortions and provide IUDs for uninsured women. This free clinic will serve as an abortion-training site for students and residents.
The fellow will apply for the Leadership Training Academy of Physician’s for Reproductive Choice and Health. If accepted, the costs of this training will be covered by the fellowship, and will require one or two meetings out of town and one or two meetings in New York City.

Salary can be discussed, but is approximately $75,000/year and the start date is flexible but is usually August of the new academic year.

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Recruitment Criteria

Applicants must be board-certified or board-eligible family physicians who will have completed residency training by July 1, 2013. Recent graduates and mid-career physicians are eligible. Candidates need not be fully trained in women’s health procedures. Candidates should have their New York State licenses before their start date for the fellowship.

High priority will be given to clinicians who:

Plan to work in an abortion provider shortage area;
Commit to developing a new abortion-training program at a family medicine residency program that currently offers no abortion training.
Would strongly consider staying on as clinicians at the Institute for Family Health following the end of the Fellowship, expanding women’s reproductive health care at the IFH sites where more help is needed.

For more information, contact: Linda Prine MD by e-mail at: info@reproductiveaccess.org or at lindaprine@mac.com.