Purpose: To review and summarize the literature on pregnancy options counseling in undergraduate medical education.
Background: The Association of Professors of Gynecology and Obstetrics (APGO) has acknowledged the importance of pregnancy options counseling by listing it as a “shows how” skill for all undergraduate medical students. Unfortunately there is no standard curriculum utilized to teach medical students pregnancy options counseling or to assess skill sustainability over time.
Methods: We performed a structured literature review, searching Google Scholar, Pubmed and EMBASE for articles between 2000 and February 2020. Inclusion criteria were English language studies of M. D. and D.O. programs in North America with a discussion of pregnancy options counseling as it relates to medical student education.
Results: There is a small but growing body of literature on the subject of pregnancy options counseling in medical student education. The common themes across the 17 papers we reviewed include the status of pregnancy options counseling in undergraduate medical education, barriers to teaching options counseling, timing of education, utilization of the pregnancy options counseling OSCE, learner challenges and novel strategies for implementing education in options counseling and subsequent learning outcomes.
Discussions: There is no standardized pregnancy options counseling curriculum in undergraduate medical education (UME). The landscape in which this important skill is being taught is one of random, insufficient and uncoordinated curricular interventions. This is the only review on this subject making it a unique summary on pregnancy options counseling in UME.
Topics: CREOG & APGO Annual Meeting, 2021, Student, Faculty, Clerkship Director, Clerkship Coordinator, Patient Care, Medical Knowledge, Interpersonal & Communication Skills, Practice-Based Learning & Improvement, GME, UME, Assessment, Virtual Patient, Simulation, Lecture, Problem-Based Learning, Standardized Patient, Public Health, Advocacy, Contraception or Family Planning, General Ob-Gyn,
Lauren Farmer, MD, Duke University Hospital; Camille Clare, MD, MPH
