An Evaluation of US Medical Schools' Reproductive Health and Family Planning Curricula

Knowledge and competency in the topics of reproductive health and family planning are important for primary care physicians. Given the high rates of unintended pregnancy, increasing rates of infertility and other gynecologic conditions, it is important for medical students, many of whom will become primary care physicians, to receive good foundational knowledge of reproductive health topics. The objective of this research project was to investigate the current curricula at US medical schools to determine the breadth and extent of education that medical students receive in reproductive health.

Medical students and faculty at 20 US medical schools shared all relevant materials from their required reproductive health curriculum used between 2016-2019, including syllabi, PowerPoint lectures, and official class handouts that were available to all students. From these, the number of mentions of 69 reproductive health-related terms were counted, including those related to family planning methods, abortion, ectopic pregnancy, reproductive counseling, and infertility.

Of the over 9000 mentions of reproductive health terms, approximately half of mentions were related to family planning, with 10% related to abortion, 10% to infertility, and 6% to reproductive counseling. Family planning strategies emphasized oral contraceptives and long-acting reversible contraceptives with limited mentions of natural or fertility awareness-based methods.

This data demonstrates opportunities for broadening reproductive health education in medical school so that future primary care physicians are prepared to discuss the full range of reproductive options for their patients.