Abortion Training and Service in the Midwest: Barriers and Innovative Strategies for Access

Women seeking abortion services in Illinois and the Midwest face barriers to access including lack of providers, prevalent religious hospital sponsorship, and other health care infrastructure that restricts clinician training and practice. The Midwest Access Project (MAP) works to overcome these barriers by training current and future health care providers, such as medical students, residents, physicians in practice, and advance practice clinicians; and by advocating for provider training and patient access. MAP facilitates regional and inter-institutional collaboration to create opportunities for provider training where none existed, and aims to expand opportunities for service provision. Our training program encompasses full scope reproductive health care, with an emphasis on contraception, pregnancy options counseling, miscarriage management, and abortion care. Since its founding in 2007, MAP has provided clinical training experiences to 136 trainees, including 50 residents (37%), 47 fourth-year medical students (34%), 27 first- and second-year medical students (20%), 4 fellows, 4 practicing physicians, and 3 advance practice clinicians. We are conducting post-training data collection to assess the scope and location of practice for trainees who are currently providing patient care. While many alums of the MAP program are still in training (school or residency), from preliminary data review we estimate that the majority of MAP alums currently in practice are involved in providing reproductive health services and/or teaching reproductive health to their peers, residents, or students (estimated n=14).