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An Excellent Place to Receive Abortion Training

Planned Parenthood Turns to UCSD to Replenish "Dwindling Number of Abortion Providers"

By Bob McPhail

Planned Parenthood of San Diego and Riverside Counties is teaching medical students how to perform abortions in a joint venture with the UCSD department of reproductive medicine. "Due to concern over the dwindling number and aging of abortion providers, [Planned Parenthood], in partnership with UCSD, has begun a program to provide medical residents with training in abortion procedures and techniques," Planned Parenthood says on its website, www.planned.org.

The department of reproductive medicine says it accepts an average of five new students a year, with "an overall total of twenty residents." Of those, 15 are expected to participate in the abortion-training program this year, according to Planned Parenthood. In its description of the program for prospective residents, the department of reproductive medicine makes explicit mention of its association with Planned Parenthood. The 2001-2002 rotation schedule for third-year residents lists the following: "Gynecology: breast, urogyn, genetic amnio, Planned Parenthood clinics."

The program was established in 1999, not long after the national accrediting agency for residency programs instituted a requirement that medical schools offer abortion training. That requirement was the result of a 1992 study by Planned Parenthood's think tank, the Alan Guttmacher Institute, which found that the number of ob-gyn residency programs offering training in first-trimester abortions had dropped 23 percent since 1985, and the number offering training in second trimester abortions had fallen 21 percent since 1985.

The mandatory abortion-training requirement was imposed by the Accredidation Council for Graduate Medical Education on Jan. 1, 1996. According the the council, "Residency programs that are accredited by the ACGME must comply with a set of standards that its experts have deemed essential to graduate medical education."

The abortion-training requirement provides: "No program or resident with a religious or moral objection will be required to provide training in, or to perform, induced abortions. Otherwise, access to experience with induced abortion must be part of residency education." But in the case of institutions like UCSD, the program exemption does not apply "because public hospitals cannot have moral or religious objections to a medical procedure which is protected by law..." By 1998, a National Abortion Federation survey of 261 ob-gyn residency programs in the U.S. found that the abortion-training mandate was working. It showed that 46 percent of medical schools now offered routine training in first-trimester abortions, 34 percent offered such training as an elective, and 44 percent offered routine second-trimester abortion training.

The UCSD program gets high marks from Medical Students for Choice, which maintains a directory of reproductive medicine residency programs, and solicits comments from current residents. "UC San Diego has ample opportunities for therapeutic abortion training," responded one first-year resident. "This training is offered but not mandatory for all residents. An an intern, I have spent one-half day per week at Planned Parenthood performing first-trimester and early second-trimester procedures for the past 10 weeks. I have done well over 50 procedures. We also have our own therapeutic abortion clinic that is located at our medical center and which also runs one-half day per week. Second- trimester procedures are done under ultrasound guidance in the OR regularly. This is an excellent, supportive place to receive surgical abortion training."

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