The Reproductive Health Care and Advocacy Fellowship is a year-long intensive clinical training program that develops a diverse community of family medicine leaders to provide, teach, and advocate for access to equitable and person-centered reproductive health care, including abortion. We envision a vibrant and diverse community of clinical leaders and change-makers with the power to provide and create access to equitable and person-centered reproductive health care in the United States.  

Four out of five people in the United States receive their health care from primary care providers. Yet, fewer than 6% of family medicine residency programs provide training in abortion and comprehensive management of early pregnancy loss. Our fellowship program helps fill this training gap.

Launched in 2007, the fellowship program has trained 51 family physicians who are practicing, teaching, and creating change across the country. Fellows are chosen because of their commitment to providing abortion care in an abortion provider shortage area, developing new abortion training programs, and speaking openly about being an abortion provider. Fellows spend one year as a “trainer in training,” learning to perform abortion and procedures related to contraception and miscarriage care, and learning to teach these procedures to others. Fellows also participate in a variety of leadership development and advocacy training activities throughout their fellowship year, with a particular focus on learning to integrate a reproductive and racial justice lens into their work as physician-advocates and leaders.

We started out training just one fellow per year. With donations from grassroots supporters and a grant from the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, we have been able to increase the number of fellows we train to six fellows a year at sites in Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, and Washington state. But, we can do more. Help us achieve our goal of training family physicians to become skilled providers and advocates for expanding access to reproductive health care.

 

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Check out this video from our 10-year anniversary celebration of the fellowship, which highlights the impact of and our vision for expanding the fellowship.