Medical Students for Choice
Mission Statement: MSFC is dedicated to ensuring that patients receive the full range of reproductive health care choices. MSFC recognizes that one of the obstacles to safe and legal abortions is the absence of trained providers. As medical students, we work to make reproductive health care, including abortions, a part of standard medical education and residency training. Using the framework of reproductive justice as our inspiration, we believe patients have the right to have a child, to not have a child, and to raise their children in a safe, just world.
People & Resources
Here are some people and partners MSFC has worked with in the past. We encourage you to reach out to them!
People:
MSFC Faculty Advisor Dr. Mary Mahoney MD -- mahon014@umn.edu
Dr. Julie Amaon MD -- jamaon@umn.edu
Dr. Amaon is a recent graduate from the UMMC (Smiley’s) Family Medicine program and is the Medical Director for Just the Pill –a company seeking to expand medical abortion access to rural MN.
Dr. Andrea Westby MD -- westby@umn.edu
Dr. Westby joined the University of Minnesota North Memorial Family Medicine Residency Program faculty in 2017. Prior to joining faculty, she was a rural full-spectrum physician including obstetrics in Perham, MN from 2012-2016. She practices and teaches full spectrum family medicine at North Memorial Medical Center and Broadway Family Medicine clinic and is involved with undergraduate medical education and as the Faculty Advisor for medical students at the University of Minnesota Medical School. Her primary medical and research interests include obstetric and prenatal care, parent-child health, reproductive justice, pediatrics, community health, weight-neutral care/Health at Every Size, structural competence, and eliminating health disparities, particularly around racial disparities, the use of race-based medicine and critical race theory in medical education.
Dr. Nicole Chaisson MD --chai0027@umn.edu
Dr. Chaisson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Minnesota where she works in the University of Minnesota Medical Center Family Medicine Residency Program as clinical faculty. She has strong interests in adolescent health, community-oriented primary care, and comprehensive reproductive health and has done local and national advocacy on reproductive health education and access. As a RHEDI program director, she expanded the gynecology curriculum at her current residency program to include training on first trimester abortion care through a partnership with Planned Parenthood. In 2009, she became the Medical Director for the Minneapolis School-based Clinics and helped expand access to LARC methods within the clinics. And while she has worked for Planned Parenthood as a contract provider for about a decade, she became the Director of Family Planning and Gender-affirming Care for the 5-state affiliate in 2018 and now splits her time between Planned Parenthood and the University. She is a graduate of Oberlin College, with a BA in Religion, worked as a Project Coordinator for a large NIH-funded study looking at the effects of stress on the progression of HIV/AIDS during the early 1990s, and completed medical school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She moved to Minnesota after her partner was hired at UMN in the Department of Sociology, completed residency training at Regions Family and Community Health, and then earned a MPH in Maternal and Child Health from UMN while completing post-graduate work in Adolescent Health. Nicole and Joe live in St. Paul, currently with one teen virtually finishing his senior year of high school and their old, bossy, puggle happy to have people around more often. Their oldest son is finishing out his senior year staring at the beautiful lake and mountains surrounding Burlington, VT where he's a forestry major enjoying all the trees he can see.
Dr. Anuja Singh MD --anujasingh86@gmail.com
Anuja Singh, MD, MSCR will be joining HealthPartners Regions Hospital in January 2021 where she will be practicing full-spectrum obstetrics and gynecology with a speciality in family planning. She will also be providing care to patients at Planned Parenthood. She is looking forward to learning more about her new community and is particularly interested in reproductive justice, abortion care, cervical cancer immunization and screening, and postpartum care.
She completed her residency in OB/GYN at Brigham and Women's Hospital/ Massachusetts General Hospital and Family Planning Fellowship at UNC Chapel Hill.
Dr. Chelsea Thibodeau DO --thibo014@umn.edu
Dr. Thibodeau first became interested in reproductive health care and abortion care provision while volunteering as a Patient Support Volunteer at Planned Parenthood in St. Paul as an undergraduate. She went to medical school at Des Moines University in Iowa and completed her residency in Family Medicine at University of Wisconsin Madison. Her passion for full spectrum reproductive health care was a strong influence in her decision to specialize in Family Medicine. Her practice includes all contraceptive care, prenatal care and deliveries, and soon will include medical and procedural abortion care. She has a strong interest in incorporating first trimester abortion into primary care and educating primary care providers in managing early pregnancy loss and early first trimester termination.
Community Partners:
Our Justice -- www.ourjustice.net
Our Justice is a local reproductive justice organization. Our Justice works to provide people with the resources they need now, while also advocating for policy change that would make these resources more available and remove many of these challenges altogether. Founded in 1967 by a small group of doctors, clergy, and community members to assist Minnesota women in accessing abortion care.
UnRestrict MN -- www.unrestrictmn.org
UnRestrict MN is a community-supported public awareness campaign that aims to educate and motivate Minnesotans to stay informed about their rights and access to abortion care in the state.
MN Reproductive Health Access Project (RHAP) -- https://network.reproductiveaccess.org/clusters/minnesota/
This is a group of residents and community family medicine physicians who seek to build connections between pro choice primary care clinicians and create spaces for peer to peer support, clinical discussion, and training. Medical students are encouraged to sign up!
Members
Ongoing Projects
Abortion Discussion Space
The Abortion Discussion space is an opportunity to engage with classmates who hold a wide range of opinions and experiences with abortion. It is a peer/physician-facilitated debriefing conversation after the only abortion lecture of our preclinical training, which occurs during the Human Sexuality course in summer semester of 1st year. The discussion was postponed this summer and will be taking place sometime this fall -- hope to see you there!
VotER
The mission of the VotER project is to improve voter registration. One aspect of this is to improve voter turnout among physicians and other healthcare providers. We've sent voter information sheets to 42 hospitals/clinics and 25 residency programs across Minnesota. MSFC has also partnered with SNMA, MAPS, and Students for a Healthy Democracy to register voters in North Minneapolis, where voter turnout is historically low.
Coffee Hours
MSFC Coffee Hours provides a space for people to come together to discuss various topics related to reproductive healthcare, rights, and policies. It is a way for people to learn more about the complexities of reproductive care through outside resources and fellow medical students. Everyone is welcome at Coffee Hours whether you are an expert on the topic or it’s your first time hearing about it. See the calendar for Coffee Hour dates and topics! See you there!
Choice Week
Choice Week will be held February 2022, more event details to come.
Education Drive
We are currently in the process of conducting literature reviews and updating the Education Drive to ensure it has up to date, relevant publications. You can access the drive here!
Equity
The Equity Committee from the Med Students for Choice-Twin Cities campus is focused on learning and spreading as much information about reproductive justice and advocacy as possible. We aim to do this by engaging with our community members as safely as possible and learning from them how we can best meet their reproductive needs as medical students, advocates, and future physicians. Our current projects are focused around donation of supplies to local clinics and encampments, creating a community health forum with expert physicians in reproductive wellness and members of our greater community and collaborating with other interest groups to practice how to conduct sexual histories and learn from other health advocates such as Doula’s. Feel free to reach out to us with any questions or new ideas and suggestions!