Our Work

Abortion is a common experience for women around the world; yet it is often excluded from mainstream curricula. Our aim is to fill in these gaps by offering free and open source evidence-based family planning curricula.

Innovating Education cultivates clinicians who offer high-quality, patient-centered, comprehensive reproductive healthcare by generating, curating, and disseminating novel curricula, learning tools, and research for educators.

We encourage educators, trainers, and learners at all stages to incorporate our resources into their lectures, curriculum, and peer-to-peer activities.

All of our curated materials are given proper citation and author credentials. If you have curricula or tools you wish to share, contact info@innovating-education.org.

Courses

In fall of 2014, UCSF partnered with Coursera.org to create Abortion: Quality Care and Public Health Implications, the first online course about abortion. It had over 6,500 learners from 155 countries and featured over twenty faculty from various institutions and multiple disciplines. Our video lectures are now used in 80 ob-gyn residency training programs across the United States and Canada.

Managing Early Pregnancy Loss is an educational initiative incorporating video-based curriculum, clinical resources, and patient education materials to support an evidence-based and patient-centered approach to miscarriage management. Our curriculum provides a comprehensive review of diagnosis and treatment of early pregnancy loss (EPL) including didactic narratives, provider testimonials, and live video and animation demonstrating a step-by-step method for manual uterine aspiration (MUA). Since its launch, we have had over 4,000 users from more than 100 countries. Our video modules has been used by organizations such as WomanCare Global and Ipas for reproductive health care trainings around the world.

Professional Responsibility

Research shows that medical students exhibit a decline in empathy after they begin interacting with patients which poses a threat to their ability to provide patient-centered care. Patient-centered care challenges doctors to be empathetic, respectful, and compassionate, even during difficult patient interactions or when they have moral objections to the patient’s health behaviors.  Teaching about abortion provides a learning opportunity for students to practice empathy and compassion in the face of patient behavior which they may not support.

Innovating Education works to ensure that all clinicians are prepared to fulfill their professional responsibility and provide patient-centered care regardless of their personal feelings about abortion and family planning. Through research and the development of workshops, interactive tools, and teaching materials, we prepare educators to teach empathy to health learners.

Where We’ve Been

2013

  • Panel, Addressing Health Disparities through Family Planning Education, APGO-CREOG Annual Meeting

2014

  • Invited Lecture, Online Resources for Teaching and Patient Care, Ryan Residency Training Program National Workshop
  • Invited CME Webinar Lecture, UCSF Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health, Train the Trainer: How to Facilitate a Values Clarification Session
  • Panel, Sexual and Reproductive Health: Strategies to Broaden the Spectrum of Gynecology, Colombian Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecology (FECOLSOG)
  • Invited Lecture, Importance of Education in Sexual and Reproductive Health in Gynecology Training, Colombian Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecology (FECOLSOG)
  • Panel, Innovations in Sexual and Reproductive Health Education, North American Forum Society for Family Planning
  • Invited Lecture, Digital Tools for Hands on Education Medical Students For Choice

2015

  • Panel, Abortion and Family Planning Digital Curriculum, Training Access Working Group, Guttmacher Institute
  • Panel, Integrating Opt-out Learners in Family Planning: Tools for Optimizing Learning and Clinical Care, National Abortion Federation
  • Invited Lecture, Facilitating Client-centered, Values Clarification and Attitude Transformation, International Planned Parenthood Southeast Asia Regional Office
  • Panel, Innovate Curricula for Teaching Family Planning and Safe Abortion, FIGO October 2015
  • Invited Lecture, Innovating Education in Reproductive Health and Family Planning, Global Maternal Newborn Health October 2015
  • Invited Lecture, Digital Education Tools for Ob/gyn Residents, Ryan Residency Training Program National Workshop, November 2015

2016

  • Panel, Values Clarification About Family Planning as a Tool to Increase Professionalism, International Congress on Women’s Health and Unsafe Abortion, January 2016
  • Invited Lecture, Papaya Workshop: Manual Vacuum Aspiration for Early Abortion and Miscarriage Management Care, American Medical Student Association, March 2016
  • Panel, Abortion, Professional Responsibility, and Patient-Centered Care, American Medical Student Association, March 2016
  • Panel, Reproductive Health within the Framework of Reproductive Justice, American Medical Student Association, March 2016