More physicians are opting to receive abortion care training, although they seldom move to areas most in need of additional abortion providers, Reuters reports.
According to Reuters, the recent "surg[e]" in the number of providers seeking abortion care training comes amid widespread clinic closures throughout the United States. The Guttmacher Institute reports that the number of abortion clinics has declined by nearly 40 percent since reaching a high in 1982.
Increased demand for training programs
Driven by strong demand from medical residents, two training programs for abortion care have reported significant expansion over the last few years, Reuters reports. Together, the two programs each year train more than 1,000 physicians and medical students in reproductive health services, including contraception and abortion care.
Uta Landy -- founder of one of the programs, the Kenneth J. Ryan Residency Training Program -- said new abortion restrictions are driving interest in abortion care training. Landy noted, "The more controversy there is, the more motivation, commitment and passion grows and responds."
According to Reuters, the Ryan program aims to establish and bolster abortion care training at U.S. OB-GYN residency programs, which despite requirements to provide abortion care training, do not universally do so. Since the Ryan program began in 1999, it has helped establish and expand abortion and family planning training at 85 teaching hospitals, 31 of which joined the program since 2010. The program is part of the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health at the University of California-San Francisco.
The second group, Medical Students for Choice, founded by a student at UC-San Francisco in 1993, now has 185 chapters and an annual budget of $1.4 million. In 2015, 137 medical students and residents accessed abortion training through the program, a more than twofold increase compared with the number of students and residents trained through the program in 2010. This year, 321 individuals have applied to the two- and three-day programs at Medical Students for Choice's Abortion Training Institute, up from the 228 applications submitted in all of 2015.
Lois Backus, executive director of Medical Students for Choice, said medical students who overcome obstacles to undergo abortion care training are heroes who "deserve the gratitude and admiration of all of us for their willingness to meet all the needs of their patients."
Access issues remain
Despite the increase in abortion care training, many physicians chose to work close to where they trained rather than in regions facing an abortion provider scarcity under multiple abortion restrictions. Sarah Prager, a professor at the University of Washington Medical School, noted, "I don't think we have a provider shortage anymore ... What we have is a distribution problem. We have a lot of providers in some of our city centers, but in rural areas there are very few people willing or able to provide care."
For example, Texas, where an omnibus antiabortion-rights law (HB 2) took effect in 2013, "is emblematic of areas of scarcity," Reuters reports. The number of abortion clinics in the state dropped dramatically after the law took effect, with more than half the clinics in the state closing. A recent study found that wait times for abortion care in the state increased, stretching to 23 days. Further, some women have to travel more than 250 miles for abortion care. According to Reuters, the Supreme Court currently is considering a challenge to parts of the law.
In response to this regional scarcity, some physicians are traveling to provide abortion care to women in areas where it is hard to access. For example, Bhavik Kumar, who attended medical school in Texas but completed Ryan residency training in New York, travels more than 2,000 miles per month to provide abortion care to women in San Antonio and Fort Worth. Kumar noted that he had to attend the Ryan residency program in New York because the medical school he attended in Texas did not offer abortion care training.
Kumar said, "Rights are being taken away from not just patients but us [providers] as well." He added, "A lot of us are angry. We're trying to get back what the opposition has taken."
Separately, Lori Carpentier, who operates Planned Parenthood clinics in Michigan, said, "There is a new generation of activist doctors," adding, "They choose to do terminations of pregnancies because it is a deeply held and passionate belief that women should have access to care" (Mincer, Reuters, 4/11).
