By Felipe on March 08th, 2023. Posted under: 2023, Blog Post, Featured Article
On behalf of the MSFC HQ team, I would like to wish our members, supporters, and alumni a very happy International Women’s Day! The theme of IWD 2023 is #EmbraceEquity, and that is a challenge we are eager to accept.
MSFC recently completed our new strategic plan, and I will be sharing more about it soon. It puts into motion a long-standing priority at MSFC to infuse equity into our programs and tap into the power of our global footprint. MSFC has been supporting medical students in their advocacy, training, and education for 30 years; we know that the path to securing the human right of bodily autonomy is through equitably supporting our chapters as part of the global movement for reproductive health, rights, and justice. Stay tuned for more information on our new strategic plan and how it will guide MSFC’s work!
From the glorious Marea Verde abortion rights victories in South America to hosting papaya workshops in the United States, MSFC student leaders stand in solidarity and are ready to act. We celebrate the abortion rights victory in Benin even as we build strategy to ensure access to safe abortion care is more than a series of words on a page. And as anti-abortion politicians in Mississippi recently revealed in their attempt to prohibit voters from securing abortion rights through a ballot measure, we find comfort in knowing that we are part of the overwhelming majority who support abortion access.
Today and every day, let us celebrate and embrace equity as the means to building a truly inclusive world where we all enjoy the right to bodily autonomy and live in communities free of violence and oppression.
In solidarity,
Pamela Merritt
Executive Director
By Felipe on February 13th, 2023. Posted under: 2023, Blog Post, Featured Article
At Texas A&M University, Ella Nonni, a third-year medical student, Elaine Avshman, a second-year medical student, Akshaya Santhanaraj, a second-year medical student, Uma Reddy, a first-year medical student, Kadambari Suri, a first-year medical student, Diana McKinnon, a fourth-year medical student, Divya Gupta, a second-year medical student developed a reproductive health elective that gives medical students an opportunity to understand and discuss abortion care, family planning, and reproductive health.
Read the syllabus and this interview to learn how they developed this course, and tips to help MSFC Members initiate similar successful projects.
How did creating an elective in family planning/abortion care get started?
The idea started to form when the state of Texas started its restrictive abortion practices. There was a realization that Texas medical students would be seeing less (to no) family planning and abortion care on clerkship. So, there was an emphasis on trying to get exposure to this material and knowledge in the pre-clerkship space. We then surveyed the student body and found there was an interest out there in reproductive health topics.
What were some challenges you faced in this process and how did you overcome them?
We held several meetings with Deans and faculty course directors. Some were enthusiastic about this concept and others held concerns. The truth is – it is unfortunately nerve racking to present some of these topics in such a polarized environment and knowledge about medicine and medical procedures has been politicized. When we faced some pushback, we respectfully explained our goals, stuck to the data, showed how larger well-known organizations (ex ACOG) held up these topics as essential to medical students’ knowledge base, and never shut a door. We welcomed and held space for the concerns, and went back time and again to reengage on the topic.
What could this elective mean for medical students?
This elective is an opportunity for our medical students to learn more about family planning, reproductive health, ethical decision making – it is meant to be informative but also give students a space to talk about “taboo” topics and get some evidence-based understanding of abortion care/family planning/reproductive justice.
What would your advice be to students who are interested in introducing a similar course at their medical school?
A good place to start is a general student body survey – showing there is interest is powerful to decision makers. Create a well-designed outline of what you want to create, ask for feedback, welcome concerns, and stay respectful and thoughtful that people’s concerns and fears are legitimate. Just because something is scary or hard doesn’t mean it is not worth doing.
MSFC believes that abortion and family planning training should be a standard part of all medical school curricula. Visit our Curriculum Reform webpage to learn more about how chapters have successfully advocated for the inclusion of abortion and reproductive health education into their curricula, and to find resources to support your chapter’s work.
By Felipe on January 23rd, 2023. Posted under: 2023, Blog Post, Featured Article, News and Views
By Sarah McNeilly, second-year medical student at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Catherine Stratis, second-year medical student at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Carly Tymm, second-year medical student at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Kimberly Graybeal, second-year medical student at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Anne Lally, second-year medical student at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and the rest of the amazing medical student team who helped work on the booklet!
A special thank you to Daniel Baboolal, Alexis Zachem, Vivian Kim, Grace Pipes, Emily Rutland, Maria Schur, Irene Tang, Emma Tucker, and Hana Flaxman for their editorial and fundraising efforts!
This past year, a group of MSFC students from NYC-area medical schools joined forces to form “MSFC NYC” and organized the “Future Docs for Abortion Access Fundraiser” to support patients seeking abortions.
Alongside our fundraising efforts, we produced a zine/booklet, entitled “Accessing Abortion in NYC: A Guide for Medical Students, by Medical Students,” to provide medical students with knowledge on abortion and access to abortion care. We hope it will fill the educational gaps that countless medical students in both NYC and across the country face in the post-Roe era.
As students in New York, a state with one of the strongest legal protections for abortion, we benefit from training in a place where abortion remains legal and at institutions where abortion is still appropriately performed and taught. For that reason, we felt it was that much more important to continue helping our local communities access abortion care and to support pregnant people in states with complete or near-total abortion bans that have begun taking effect. While many may feel helpless in the wake of this decision, it is crucial to recognize that as medical students we can and should advocate for a more equitable and just future.
MSFC believes that abortion and family planning training should be an essential part of all medical school curricula. To access the booklet, click here.
The booklet is a comprehensive guide on the clinical, legal, and social aspects of providing and accessing abortion care in New York City.
Learn below how the booklet was developed to provide accessible abortion education for medical students regardless of where they live, and how medical students can adapt it for their communities.
How did the idea of creating a booklet start?
- After the Dobbs decision, MSFC chapters across the country began communicating nearly daily to discuss opportunities to collaborate. We knew that as New Yorkers, our abortion rights and access would thankfully remain preserved post-Roe, at least in the immediate future, so our earliest meetings focused on how we could simultaneously lend our support to patients and providers in abortion-restricted areas of the country while remaining involved in our local communities.
- Developing educational resources felt like a natural place to start: it provided us with the opportunity to fill curricular gaps for fellow medical students, while potentially helping patients living in or traveling to NYC navigate abortion care.
- Our guide was ultimately written “by medical students, for medical students” for multiple reasons. First and foremost, we felt it was imperative to ensure that our peers had access to robust, accurate abortion education that covered complex medical, legal, and social issues, in line with MSFC’s mission “to create tomorrow’s abortion providers and pro-choice physicians.” Second, we knew that our institutional affiliations gave us built-in distribution networks that would allow us to reach hundreds of students. Third, we recognized the potential downstream effects of medical education: that knowledgeable medical students would become knowledgeable doctors, who could reach countless patients in the future.
What were some of the challenges you faced in this process and how did you overcome them?
- Given that our primary audience was fellow medical students, we wanted our writing to be the right mix of engaging, accessible, and informative. We felt it was imperative for future clinicians to engage rigorously with medical, legal, social, and ethical information on abortion—the latest data, the highest-quality articles — and to distill the most salient points in a sea of misinformation.
- We overcame these obstacles by conducting an extensive editing process. The booklet underwent multiple rounds of peer editing before receiving feedback from physicians and educators, which ultimately ensured that our booklet was comprehensive, accurate, and engaging. It was a labor of love, but well worth the wait.
How did you approach coalition-building, and how did this coalition and the booklet shape your idea of medical student advocacy?
- Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, several MSFC chapters in NYC came together with the idea that as medical students we can and should advocate for a more equitable and just future. We formed “MSFC NYC”, a local coalition of medical students working together to support abortion education access. Being from different medical schools, we could combine the diverse perspectives, resources, faculty relationships, and physician networks from across our institutions, which augmented our ability to enact change. We knew there was strength in numbers, and were determined to work together towards our goals.
- As part of this collaboration, we had two goals: 1) collectively fundraise for abortion access in the month of August 2022, and 2) develop and broaden abortion education throughout NYC. By spreading the word with our medical schools, friends, and family members, we collectively raised $20,105 to support two abortion access organizations: the National Network of Abortion Funds and The Brigid Alliance, both of which strive to remove financial and logistical barriers to abortion care.
- On the education front, despite 25% of pregnancies ending in abortion worldwide, abortion is starkly absent from medical school curricula with half of all medical schools in the US giving no formal training in abortion or only a single lecture. To start to address these education gaps, we developed our abortion education and access booklet. At the same time, we also met with abortion providers around NYC, hosting several talks across our NYC schools on a series of abortion topics including medical-legal partnerships in a post-Roe era and abortion in marginalized populations. We even hosted a tabling event in a park in NYC where we shared our fundraiser with the greater public and spread knowledge on MSFC’s abortion education and advocacy efforts. Most recently, our collaboration has been working with legislatures to draw support for recent bills that allocate funds for OB GYN residents in abortion-restrictive states to receive training on abortion in NYC and develop shield laws for NYC providers sending abortion pills into restricted states.
- With these examples of advocacy through our MSFC NYC teamwork, we hope that our coalition-building efforts inspire other MSFC groups to recognize the power of collective action and create tangible progress within our communities. During this unprecedented time for abortion access in the US, medical students can play an important role as advocates to support our future patients and protect their rights to reproductive health care, including abortion.
The MSFC NYC coalition collectively raised $20,105 to support the National Network of Abortion Funds and The Brigid Alliance.
How can other medical students use our booklet?
- We wrote this booklet to provide all medical students with reliable, accessible abortion education that honors its complex sociopolitical history. Ultimately, we hope to equip our readers with the understanding that abortion is a foundational, essential part of reproductive healthcare and the tools to support anyone in need—be it their patients, their friends, or themselves. We hope this book can be shared widely by our medical student peers as the fundamental abortion information documented in it can be helpful for all individuals.
- While our guide did focus on accessing abortion in our local New York City community, we believe that it can and should be adapted in other places, informed by local restrictions. All medical students, regardless of where they attend, deserve comprehensive abortion education—and until there is a national curricular standard for abortion education, student-developed tools like ours can help bridge the gap. That is why we are so thrilled to be part of the international MSFC community, which allows us to forge connections with chapters across the US and the world to work collectively around advancing reproductive justice.
Students of the MSFC NYC coalition at fundraising event.
