Opinion piece written by MSFC’s chapter members from the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine.

It was a shot heard around the world—the announcement earlier this summer declaring the dreaded but expected overturn of Roe v Wade, effectively ending access to safe, legal abortions in large swaths of the United States. As medical students, many of us are still grappling with the ramifications of this decision and the impact it will have on our future clinical practice and the core physician-patient relationship.

Committing to medical school is not an easy decision; it requires careful contemplation of a nearly decade-long sacrifice to train in the service of our future patients. Most of us make that decision eagerly, excited at the prospect of entering training programs that we believe will equip us with the tools we need to enter a profession we have long idealized. With this decision by the US Supreme Court, we now have to grapple with how this will affect not only our training but that of the next generation of physicians, who will be entering a vastly different landscape with dramatically more barriers than we had to face even three years ago when we matriculated. Medical students have been left re-evaluating the future of medical education, what it will look like for future generations, and what we can do about it.

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