S. Lim et al. / Open Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 3 (2013) 727-731
Copyright © 2013 SciRes.
731
care services, such as management of early pregnancy
failures, after graduation [17]. Offering optional training
is not only insufficient but also problematic; residents
should not be held responsible for arranging off-site op-
portunities.
OPEN ACCESS
There are limitations to our study. We used conven-
ience sampling to recruit residents, which led to income-
plete participation. Participation, however, was not based
on interest in the study; focus groups took place during
residents’ protected academic time so all available resi-
dents participated including residents who opted out of
abortion training. We also had small overall participation
numbers which precluded us from measuring the effects
of other potential confounders. Finally, although we did
not survey the number of procedures performed by resi-
dents or use a validated measure to assess competency,
Mandel et al. [18] have demonstrated that OB/GYN resi-
dents self-assess well compared to faculty observers.
Residents at routine programs in our study expressed
more favorable views about their abortion training when
a dedicated family planning rotation was offered, which
has been previously described [12,15]. In our study, struc-
tured abortion training occurred with the assistance of
the Ryan program. The Ryan program helps provide cur-
ricular support and assists with training opportunities
either on-site or by collaboration with a freestanding cli-
nic. We encourage program directors looking to imple-
ment or improve induced abortion training to collaborate
with this program. By increasing the number of programs
that provide routine instruction, we may potentially in-
crease the number of abortion providers throughout the
US. Such improvements may ultimately ensure that wo-
men throughout the country have access to well-trained,
competent providers to meet their reproductive health
care needs.
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