Reproductive Health Care and Advocacy Fellowship

The Institute for Family Health offers a one-year fellowship to develop leaders who will promote and teach full-spectrum women’s reproductive health care within family medicine. The fellowship trains family medicine physicians at the Institute’s two residency training sites in Manhattan.

Curriculum and Setting

There are two to three fellowship positions based in New York City at Institute for Family Health-affiliated residencies: one at the Mount Sinai Downtown Residency in Urban Family Medicine, and two at the Harlem Residency in Family Medicine Program.

All fellows will participate in the following activities:

1. Fellows will spend one year as a “trainer in training,” learning to perform full spectrum reproductive health care and related procedures (IUD and implant insertions, first-trimester sonography, endometrial biopsy, and manual vacuum aspiration of the uterus) and learning to teach these procedures to others.  The training will take place at the Institute for Family Health at 17^th Street, the Walton Family Health Center, and the Family Health Center of Harlem. The fellows will also spend 15 to 20 days at a high volume full-spectrum reproductive health care site, getting uterine aspiration training and becoming a trainer.
2. Fellows will work four to five sessions (two and one-half days) per week at a continuity care site at the Institute, seeing continuity care patients or precepting residents. The fellow will work two procedure sessions at an Institute site learning to perform and then teach a wide range of procedures.
3. Fellows will develop teaching and leadership skills by giving presentations during the residency curriculum sessions and at academic family medicine meetings. Fellows will participate in advocacy projects that promote access to reproductive health care in family medicine, with guidance from the Reproductive Health Access Project (RHAP). Fellows, in collaboration with residents and faculty, will work on the on-going projects with a goal of preparing presentations for academic meetings and/or publications for family medicine journals.
4. Fellows will work with Medical Students for Choice (MS4C), helping them build their local chapters and engaging residents in doing projects with the medical students.
5. Fellows will participate in the LARC training program at the Institute that is run in collaboration with RHAP. The fellows will help train clinicians from local primary care centers in order to expand access LARC.
6. The fellows will participate in working in and sustaining a free clinic that is run in collaboration with NYU medical students, fellowship faculty, and the Institute’s free clinic medical advisors. The fellows will participate in the “reproductive health team” that provides full spectrum reproductive health care to uninsured women. This free clinic will serve as a reproductive health training site for students and residents.

Program Leadership

• Dr. Caitlin Weber, program director

How to Apply

To apply, please email the following materials to fellowship@reproductiveaccess.org. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis until December 1st. Please indicate clearly that you are applying for the Institute for Family Health Fellowship positions.

• Cover letter stating the reasons for interest and career goals
• Three references (must either be on electronic letterhead with an electronic signature or a scanned pdf of the letter on letterhead with a signature)
• Curriculum vitae

Eligibility Criteria

Applicants must be board-certified or board-eligible family physicians who will have completed residency training by July 1 of the fellowship start-up year. Recent graduates and mid-career physicians are eligible. Candidates need not be fully trained in women’s health procedures.  Candidates should have their New York State licenses before their start date for the fellowship. High priority will be given to clinicians who:

• Plan to provide full-spectrum reproductive health care in a full-spectrum reproductive health care provider shortage area, or stay at the Institute for Family Health;
• Commit to developing a new full-spectrum reproductive health care-training program at a family medicine residency program that currently offers no full-spectrum reproductive health care training.