by Eglė Janušonytė1, Tamara Fetters2, Gabriela Cipriano3, Iheb Jemel4, Cecilia Espinoza2
1 Faculty of Medicine, Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania; 2 Ipas, United States; 3 Former Assistant Americas Region, International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Lima, Peru; 4 Faculty of Medicine, University of Monastir, Monastir, Tunisia
Frontiers in Global Women’s Health, 11 March 2024, DOI 10.3389/fgwh.2024.1253658
Introduction: Access to safe abortion has been recognized as a fundamental human right and important public health priority. Medical schools provide a rare opportunity to expose medical students to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health (SRH) topics and normalize abortion care early in a physician’s career.
Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive study used an online survey to explore abortion content in medical curricula and medical student intentions, attitudes, and beliefs regarding abortion provision among 1,699 medical students from 85 countries.
Results: Results demonstrate positive attitudes towards abortion provision, with 83% reporting that “access to safe abortion is every woman’s right”. Students also reported a relatively high willingness to provide abortions professionally, despite having few opportunities to learn about doing so. Only one-third of students surveyed reported having taken a gynaecology course (n = 487; 33%). Among these, one-third said they had had no content on abortion care in their programs thus far (n = 155; 32%), including no instruction on post-abortion care. Among the two-thirds of students who had some content on abortion care (n = 335), either on induced abortion, post-abortion care or both, 55% said the content was limited to one lecture and only 19% reported having an opportunity to participate in any practical training on abortion provision. Despite most students having no or very limited didactic and practical training on abortion, 42% intended to provide this care after graduation. Three-quarters of student respondents were in favour of mandatory abortion education in medical curricula.
Discussion: The findings of this study offer new evidence about abortion care education in medical curricula around the globe, indicating that there is no lack of demand or interest in increasing medical knowledge on comprehensive abortion care, merely a lack of institutional will to expand course offerings and content. This study is one of the few to examine attitudes and willingness of international medical students in training to accept abortion education and provide services.