Did you know that Hawaiian papayas serve as excellent, inexpensive uterine models for teaching procedures like IUD placements and manual vacuum aspiration? The Papaya Workshop has been used for many years as a clinical teaching tool for students, residents, and clinicians training in reproductive health care. RHAP has found that an adapted version of this workshop…
On April 7-9th, RHAP (staff, interns, and fellows) attended the Civil Liberties and Public Policy (CLPP) Conference at Hampshire College. The conference’s theme, “From Abortion Rights to Social Justice: Building the Movement for Reproductive Freedom,” allowed veterans in the movement to create safe spaces for rising activists to share experiences and grow together as the…
The Miscarriage Care Initiative (MCI) is an effort by the Reproductive Health Access Project to expand access to evidence-based, patient-centered miscarriage care in primary care settings. Our vision is to support family physicians and clinic administrators to integrate all three forms of miscarriage management—expectant, medication, and manual vacuum aspiration (MVA) management—into their clinical practice. Read about our 2015-2016…
I did two abortions this morning (among other procedures) in our neighborhood family health center. The first was a 25-year-old professional woman who came in with her best friend, having been referred from her boutique practice that does IUDs but not abortions. She was pregnant with an IUD in place and had texted me yesterday evening,…
March 10 is Abortion Provider Appreciation Day. Abortion providers often face misunderstandings about the work they do and the environment they work in. To show our appreciation for abortion providers we are addressing one such abortion myth. At a recent organizational retreat RHAP’s Medical Director, Linda Prine, MD, fielded the following challenging question: “Do primary care clinicians…
About 15-20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage. Miscarriage can be a difficult experience for many women, as our medical director Linda Prine, MD discussed in her recent blog post. In honor of national Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day on October 15th we would like to share our recent work on miscarriage care. Studies have shown that when women…
Linda Prine, RHAP’s medical director, moderates the Access List, a clinical listserv with more than 1,000 subscribers all dedicated to providing abortion care within family medicine and primary care settings. This blog regularly features Linda’s postings to the Access List. I was shocked by the hurt in her voice when our patient started telling us…
Our papaya workshop was on October 28, 2013. The date was rather fitting, as it was also on this day we learned that District Judge Yeakel found the increased abortion restrictions via the passage of HB2 unconstitutional. This news infused an extra bit of excitement into the evening’s workshop on manual vacuum aspiration. Judge Yeakel’s…
We at RHAP have always known that just because clinicians are trained in abortion care doesn’t mean they will provide abortion care. Whether or not clinicians can provide this care rests on many factors including: where the individual practices are located, the support of their colleagues, the ability to access the right equipment and supplies,…
Our first summer brown bag lunch was a great success! On Monday, July 16th, the Reproductive Health Access Project invited summer interns from reproductive health and justice organizations around New York City to lunch time talk. The topic? A papaya workshop. Now you might be asking yourself, “Papayas? What’s so special about a papaya?” Well,…