Med Students and Residents Are Facing Difficulties When Trying to Find and Receive Abortion Training

It’s becoming harder and harder for medical students and residents in the United States to get training on performing abortion procedures.

So far, at least eight states have proposed or enacted bills and laws that limit or control abortion education and procedures. And the structure of Roe v. Wade continues to be attacked. For the time being, some med students have opted to look into abortion training from doctors outside of the traditional medical education system, ABC reports.

“It’s quite terrifying what’s going on,” said third-year medical student Ian Peake. Peake is currently being taught and trained in Oklahoma, where most abortions have been banned by the governor. He says that if he wanted to learn how to do a specific procedure like colonoscopies, he could shadow a doctor doing research or work in a clinic. However, that’s not the same for abortion procedures.

“That would be easy,” he said. “To do the same for abortion, that’s almost impossible.” Peake says he spent about six months trying to find a provider who would teach him.

As states continue to build roadblocks against abortion rights, studies show a lack of curriculum and training for abortions in medical school.

ABC reports that in 2020, Stanford University researchers said they found that more than half of medical schools had no formal abortion training or had just one lecture centered around abortions.

“Abortion is one of the most common medical procedures,” the researchers wrote, ABC News reports. “Yet abortion-related topics are glaringly absent from medical school curricula.”