Exploring barriers to abortion access: Medical students' intentions, attitudes and exposure to abortion.

OBJECTIVE: To describe medical student attitudes and exposure to abortion and pregnancy options counseling and influences of that experience on the provision of these services in their future practice. STUDY DESIGN: A survey was conducted of 3rd and 4th year medical students in 2019 at an US medical school in the Northeast. RESULTS: One hundred and sixty-two students participated in the survey (response rate = 46 %, 162/353). Only 27 % reported receiving at least one educational lecture on abortion during medical school. Fifty-eight percent reported clinical exposure to surgical abortion. About 2/3 reported being somewhat likely to provide abortions in the future, despite most identifying as "pro-choice." There was significant association between clinical exposure to surgical abortion and desire to include abortion in future practice (P = 0.03). The most common objections to performing future abortions were personal values, religious objection, and lack of training/experience. Most respondents did not feel comfortable providing counseling for abortion or adoption. Combined, only 14.4 % reported that they would be at least somewhat likely to apply to obstetrics-gynecology or family medicine residency programs, including programs with opportunities for such training. CONCLUSIONS: Earlier work has shown that medical student intentions to provide abortions prior to residency are better predictors of future abortion provision than during residency. Thus, medical school is a critical time for exposure to abortion and pregnancy options counseling. Such exposure and medical student attitudes are areas of research that should be further studied to contribute to the expansion and normalization of these services.

The Status of Medical Student Education in Pregnancy Options Counseling: a Review.

BACKGROUND: The Association of Professors of Gynecology and Obstetrics (APGO) has acknowledged the importance of pregnancy options counseling by listing it as a "shows how" skill for all undergraduate medical students. Unfortunately, there is no standard curriculum utilized to teach medical students pregnancy options counseling or to assess skill sustainability over time. OBJECTIVES: To review and summarize the literature on pregnancy options counseling in undergraduate medical education. METHODS: We performed a structured literature review searching Google Scholar, PubMed, and EMBASE for articles between 2000 and February 2020. Inclusion criteria were English language studies of M. D. and D.O. programs in North America with a discussion of pregnancy options counseling as it relates to medical student education. RESULTS: There is a small but growing body of literature on pregnancy options counseling in medical student education. The common themes across the 17 papers reviewed include the status of pregnancy options counseling in undergraduate medical education, barriers to teaching options counseling, the timing of education, utilization of the options counseling Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE), learner challenges, and novel strategies for implementing education in options counseling and subsequent learning outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: There is no standardized pregnancy options counseling curriculum in undergraduate medical education (UME). The landscape in which this important skill is being taught is one of random, insufficient, and uncoordinated curricular interventions. This is the only review on this subject, making it a unique summary on pregnancy options counseling in UME.

Pitfalls and challenges in managing neuroendocrine carcinoma of gynecological origin: A case series and brief review.

Due to gynecologic tract (gNET) rarity, gynecologists may not have a strong index of suspicion for which to diagnose these tumors ultimately causing misdiagnoses and potential mismanagement. Gynecologists should be wary of diagnostic pitfalls.