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Harvard School of Medicine
The Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) / Harvard Medical School Family Planning Fellowship program provides Obstetrician-Gynecologists with the clinical and research training they need to become leaders in the field of family planning. Brigham and Women’s Hospital has a long-standing commitment to women’s reproductive health. The Family Planning Unit at BWH was initially established by Dr. Kenneth J. Ryan in 1973, shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion in the United States. The unit created at BWH was the first outpatient abortion service within a teaching hospital in the United States and the first to provide routine training of gynecology residents in abortion care. Providing access to abortion services and training of gynecology residents in abortion care has remained at the core of the mission of the BWH Family Planning Unit. To further its mission of training future leaders in women’s reproductive health, Brigham and Women’s Hospital established a Fellowship in Family Planning in 2005.
Fellows get surgical abortion training at BWH’s ambulatory family planning unit and get additional experience managing complex abortion cases in the main operating rooms. Fellows work in the general gynecology clinic, where they will see patients for both routine and complex contraception visits. Fellows also work at the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts (PPLM) Boston site, which provides over 14,000 contraceptive visits and 9,000 abortions annually, including about 2100 medical abortions. This clinical volume combined with the more complex cases at BWH provides ample opportunity for training as well as an ideal research population for clinical studies of abortion and contraception. Additional abortion training in outpatient second trimester D&E occurs at a private clinic, Women’s Health Services (WHS) in Chestnut Hill. Fellows have clinical responsibilities in general gynecology at BWH. Obstetrics is optional and fellows will decide on an annual basis whether or not to take obstetric night call. During the first summer of fellowship, all fellows are expected to enroll in the Clinical Effectiveness Program at the Harvard School of Public Health. This is an intensive seven-week program, which contains summer-long core courses in Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics. The program is well established. In the fifteen years of its existence, more than 1000 physicians from a variety of clinical fields have enrolled in and completed the summer curriculum of the Program in Clinical Effectiveness, nearly all have received academic appointments at research-oriented institutions. After completion of the Clinical Effectiveness course, first year fellows will continue their coursework to obtain either an MPH or MS degree from the Harvard School of Public Health. Fellows with an interest in Health Policy may also take select classes at the Kennedy School of Government. During their first year, all fellows are expected to design and implement an original research project under the mentorship and guidance of fellowship faculty. Second year fellows will concentrate on completing their projects and preparing their work for presentation and publication. Fellow’s research may be on a variety of family planning topics and fellows are afforded flexibility in choosing their area of concentration. In addition to completing their own project, fellows are also an integral part of the Research Center at Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts. As part of the Research Center, fellows have assistance on their projects from an experienced research staff (i.e. help with IRB submissions and study implementation). Fellows will also be involved as investigators in a variety of other contraception and abortion clinical trials. Working on these trials will give fellows the opportunity to learn how multi-center trials are conducted and will provide exposure to conducting research with other non-profit research organizations and industry. In addition to hands-on experience conducting research and coursework at the School of Pubic Health, second year fellows will also have the opportunity to attend practical courses on the conduct of clinical research. Partners Healthcare (the healthcare organization encompassing BWH and Massachusetts General Hospital) operates the Center for Clinical Investigation (CCI), which regularly holds educational seminars and courses for new investigators across both institutions. Through the CCI, second year fellows can attend courses on topics such as; conducting clinical trials, writing consent forms at a low-literacy level, grant writing and presenting and publishing research. In addition to their primary appointment in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology all fellows receive a secondary appointment in the Interdisciplinary Division of Women’s Health. Through the Division of Women’s Health fellows have the opportunity to collaborate with a variety of senior level researchers (i.e. epidemiologists, statisticians) as well as with physicians in other clinical disciplines (i.e. internal medicine, emergency medicine) all of whom have an interest in and commitment to women’s health. Through the Division of Women’s Health, fellows also have the opportunity to collaborate with Global Women’s Health fellows (see below in International Opportunities). The primary and overall mentor for fellows is Dr. Alisa Goldberg, the fellowship director. Dr. Goldberg meets regularly with fellows to provide guidance and ensure that goals for professional development are being met. In addition to mentoring from Dr. Goldberg, fellows receive mentorship from Dr. Robert Barbieri, Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Dr. Paula Johnson, Chief of the Division of Women’s Health and Dr. Karen Lifford, Medical Director of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts. All fellows will have the opportunity for an international rotation to gain exposure to issues around family planning service provision in developing countries. Fellows will have assistance in organizing this experience through the fellowship national office. Through the Division of Women’s Health, family planning fellows will be able to work with BWH Global Women’s Health fellows. Family planning fellows can attend seminars and educational lectures designed to prepare fellows for a career in international women’s health. Opportunities for collaborative projects abroad may also exist. Family planning fellows who are particularly interested in international work may also be able to identify opportunities to work in areas of great need (i.e. disaster relief, war-torn countries) through the Harvard Humanitarian Institute.
Alisa Goldberg , MD, MPH is Assistant Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology at Harvard Medical School and is the Director of Fellowship and Research Programs in Family Planning at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She is also the Director of Clinical Research and Training at Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts. Dr. Goldberg obtained her doctor of medicine degree from Harvard Medical School and completed residency training in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH). She completed the Fellowship in Family Planning at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in 1999, spent three years on faculty at UCSF as an NIH Women’s Reproductive Health Research (WRHR) Scholar and as the medical director of the Women’s Options Center at San Francisco General Hospital. She returned to Boston in 2003 and joined the faculty at Harvard Medical School and the staff at BWH and PPLM. In 2005, she established the Harvard Fellowship in Family Planning. Dr. Goldberg is also on the Board of Directors of the National Abortion Federation and is the faculty advisor for the Harvard Chapter of Medical Students for Choice.
Research and Clinical Interests of the Directors
Current Faculty Research Projects
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