How to Become a RHEDI Program

Are you interested in your residency becoming a RHEDI program?

Perspectives from RHEDI Directors:

"I’m living my dream of integrating abortion into the primary care space, and training our next generation of family physicians to have the expectation to provide comprehensive reproductive care into their practices with the skills to do it!"

"Being a RHEDI program has been an advantage for us both in terms of curriculum design, and for recruitment. Many applicants are interested in coming to a RHEDI program where they know abortion training is part of the curriculum, along with everything else we do in family medicine."

"Being a part of RHEDI has been wonderful for our mission of training family physicians in full spectrum reproductive health. The RHEDI platform provides a wealth of well designed and often updated learning resources for our residents. It fills in gaps and bolsters the learning they get in clinic and in didactics. For the faculty, being part of RHEDI has meant having a supportive network of colleagues and being part of the conversations to make reproductive healthcare more inclusive and focused on social justice."

Why become a RHEDI program?

RHEDI’s mission is to integrate high-quality, patient-centered abortion and contraception training and services into U.S. family medicine residencies using the Reproductive Justice framework, and more broadly, to mainstream abortion care within family medicine. Integrating comprehensive sexual and reproductive health (SRH) training in family medicine normalizes the provision of abortion care within primary care, enhances continuity care for patients, and expands options for those who may prefer to have an abortion in their own physician’s office.

We have supported over 30 family medicine residency programs across the country to become RHEDI programs, and encourage other residencies to work with us to become RHEDI programs!

RHEDI programs report:

Increased interest from residency applicants (reported by 93% of RHEDI directors)
Improved skills and competence for both residents and faculty in medication and aspiration abortion, options counseling, miscarriage management, ultrasound, and contraception including LARC methods
Increased interest from and retention of faculty interested in providing and teaching comprehensive SRH care
Increased opportunities for research
Improved patient care and patient satisfaction through increased access to streamlined, same-day SRH services in their own physician’s office

RHEDI offers its programs (and prospective programs):

Technical assistance to:
- initiate abortion and contraception services and training in continuity sites
- identify and develop partnerships with high volume training sites
- set up and customize RHEcourse, the reproductive health education platform designed by Innovating Education in Reproductive Health that allows instructors to assign content to learners, track their progress, and evaluate comprehension
Curricular resources to enhance resident and faculty education on evidence-based SRH care, using the Reproductive Justice framework
Small grant support for faculty salaries to work on the implementation of RHEDI program expectations and processes
Connection to the growing RHEDI community through annual gatherings at national family medicine conferences, grand rounds, RHEDI directors meetings, and webinars
Mentorship and technical assistance on reproductive health-related research projects which may include assistance with study design, proposal development, data analysis, and dissemination

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RHEDI programs are family medicine residency programs which have integrated reproductive health education and training, including contraception and abortion.

All RHEDI programs incorporate a reproductive justice framework in their approach to teaching, and have dedicated faculty to support residents interested in family planning.

What is a RHEDI Program?

RHEDI programs are family medicine residency programs which have integrated reproductive health education and training, including contraception and abortion.

All RHEDI programs incorporate a reproductive justice framework in their approach to teaching, and have dedicated faculty to support residents interested in family planning.

How does RHEDI certification work?

You can download the full list of program expectations here.

U.S. Family Medicine residency programs are now eligible to apply to become a RHEDI program! RHEDI program expectations can be found here. Applications are rolling, but in order to be included in the July 2025 promotion for medical students, must be received by July 11, 2025. Certified programs will be approved for two years.

RHEDI at TEACH

The RHEDI program network is now being coordinated by TEACH. If you are interested in learning more about the certification process or applying to become a RHEDI Program, please email rhedi@teachtraining.org.

If your program does not have fully-integrated abortion training, but you would like to be listed as a RHEDI-affiliated program, please please email rhedi@teachtraining.org.