RHEDI conducts a broad range of research and evaluation activities that demonstrate the impact of integrated abortion and contraceptive training in family medicine residencies, and examine how the provision of these services within family medicine can improve abortion access and quality of care.
See: Summit AK, Chong E., Gold M. Abortion provision by family physicians after integrated opt-out training in residency. Fam Med. 2022; DOI: 10.22454/FamMed.2023.526561
See: Patel P et al. Abortion Provision Among Recently Graduated Family Physicians. Fam Med. 2020 Nov;52(10):724-729. doi: 10.22454/FamMed.2020.300682. PMID: 33151532.
Since RHEDI’s founding in 2004, we’ve grown from working with only a few family medicine residencies to partnering with 34 residency programs around the country to institute high-quality integrated opt-out abortion training. In the period from 2006 through 2020, RHEDI faculty trained 2028 residents in abortion. The majority of these residents were trained in both medication abortion and abortion procedures, within both family medicine and high volume clinic settings, preparing them to provide comprehensive abortion care for their future patients.
In our research which followed family physicians who trained at RHEDI programs, 24% have provided abortion after residency, as compared to only 3% of a representative survey of family physicians in a similar age cohort. Furthermore, RHEDI’s impact goes beyond the learners we’ve trained directly: RHEDI graduates have gone on to found new RHEDI programs, to train over 1,600 learners in abortion, to initiate abortion provision at their workplaces, and to be active leaders in abortion training, access, research, and policy within family medicine.
Two new research studies from RHEDI were presented in early May at both the annual conferences of the Society for Teachers of Family Medicine and the National Abortion Federation!
Both studies were presented as oral presentations at STFM and as poster presentations at NAF: we look forward to sharing more details from this research!
RHEDI recently partnered with the Council of Academic Family Medicine on a CERA survey of family medicine residency program directors, which took place in December 2022. The survey included questions from RHEDI on the availability of abortion training during residency. The results will allow us to gain a comprehensive and updated understanding of the availability of abortion training within family medicine residencies, including both routine and optional training and both medication and aspiration abortion. We look forward to disseminating the results of the survey!
We support RHEDI programs by offering one-on-one technical assistance in research and evaluation.
RHEDI staff are available to offer technical assistance to RHEDI directors and residents working on projects around abortion and reproductive health within family medicine.
Our team can assist with:
Recent examples of collaborative projects including partnering with RHEDI faculty and colleagues at the Family Medicine Residency of Western Montana to design and field a scope of practice survey for rural family physicians, as well as partnering with RHEDI faculty at the University of Washington and WWAMI Region Practice and Research Network (WPRN) on a multi-site project assessing patients’ interest in and barriers to receiving reproductive health services in urban and rural primary care clinics.
Supporting RHEDI program evaluation
We are also always happy to share the routine evaluation data that RHEDI collects from your program’s residents with RHEDI directors and faculty. If you’re interested in exploring a potential collaborative project, please reach out to Aleza Summit, RHEDI’s Director of Research and Evaluation, at asummit@montefiore.org, to discuss further. We look forward to hearing from you!
These core publications on abortion and contraception care in family medicine offer essential background knowledge for providers, educators, advocates.
