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University of Michigan
At the University of Michigan’s Fellowship in Family Planning fellows gain clinical and research skills vital to ongoing careers in family planning patient care and research. University of Michigan is known for its commitment to interdisciplinary training and scholarship. Since so many problems of fertility control and controversies around abortion hinge on factors that lie outside of strict clinical practice we have assembled Fellowship faculty and opportunities that cross boundaries between the Medical School, School of Public Health, and many individual departments and programs within the College of Literature, Sciences and the Arts. While the Fellowship program is housed in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, it is very much a program of the University as a whole, and fellows will have the resources of the entire institution available to them.
In the clinical component of the fellowship, fellows will be trained in use and management of all contraceptive agents currently available, laparoscopic and hysteroscopic tubal ligation, and all methods of medical and surgical termination of pregnancy in the first and second trimester. There will be emphasis on contraception and abortion issues in medically complicated patients and college-age populations. Vasectomy training is also provided for interested fellows. Clinical work will take place primarily at University of Michigan and Planned Parenthood Mid-Michigan Alliance, with other sites, including University Health Services (serving university students and faculty) and The Corner Clinic (adolescent and teen clinic) available according to fellow interest. To supplement late second trimester abortion experience at University of Michigan, fellows will have the option of rotating to an out-of-state high-volume second trimester site. Fellows will spend a total of 2 days per week engaged in clinical activities. Fellows may take overnight Labor and Delivery call (for additional compensation) if desired. In addition, they may attend on the inpatient Gynecology service, though neither of the latter two opportunities are required. Fellows will have four primary options for the degree portion of their research training, depending upon their prior experience and particular research training goals: 1) Masters of Public Health 2) Masters of Science in Health Services Research 3) Masters of Science in Clinical Research Design and Statistical Analysis 4) Masters of Health and Health Care Research. Other degree programs, including the Masters of Public Policy or Masters of Public Administration programs are possible as well. Fellows may also enroll in a variety of intensive summer curricula if relevant to their work, including a Survey Research Course offered by the Institute for Social Research, or a Graduate Program in Epidemiology offered by the School of Public Health. Research may be conducted on a broad range of topics, reflecting the very broad interest in family planning research across University of Michigan’s campus. Fellows could readily work with: medical school faculty to conduct clinical trials of contraceptives; demographers and sociologists to analyze large population databases (The National Survey of Family Growth is just one large study directed by social scientists at University of Michigan); anthropologists to conduct ethnographic research locally or internationally; policy experts and attorneys to examine the impact of abortion or contraception legislation; economists to do econometric or cost analyses of various aspects of reproductive medicine. The possibilities are many, and with the guidance of the fellowship directors, fellows can tailor their experience to their individual interests and career goals. Research infrastructure at University of Michigan is superb, and includes both an inpatient and outpatient Clinical Research Center, statistical support from the Center for Statistical Consultation and Research (CSCAR), support for clinical trials from the Center for the Advancement of Clinical Research (CACR), support for cost and decision analysis from The Consortium for Health Outcomes Curriculum and Cost Effectiveness (CHOICES); support for interdisciplinary research on women and gender from Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWG); support for research on race and racial disparities in health from The Center for Research on Ethnicity, Culture and Health (CRECH); support for community-based participatory research from The Detroit Community-Academic Urban Research Center (URC). The research experience will culminate in three projects: 1) a systematic review of the medical literature on a topic related to the fellow’s ultimate research interest; 2) a secondary data analysis; and 3) a clinical, health services or policy research project involving original data collection. Collaboration across disciplines and specialties is a core feature of University of Michigan, as described above. New and innovative collaborations are always encouraged. There are many possibilities for “cross-pollination” with fellows outside of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department, as UM is home to the Robert Wood Johnson (RWJ) Clinical Scholars Program, the RWJ Health Policy Scholars Program, and numerous other programs. In addition, externships with Michigan Abortion Rights Action League (MARAL), and with Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) are possible. The fellowship director will organize a three-person faculty Mentor Team for each fellow. The Mentor Team will consist of one of the fellowship directors, a methodological expert, and a topic/content expert. The team will provide guidance and monitor progress on all three of the fellow’s research projects over the two year fellowship, and even beyond as the fellow’s research career progresses. There will be regularly scheduled meetings with the director, fellows and their Mentor Teams and other members of the core faculty to present work in progress for feedback. International travel for training, service provision and research will be an integral part of the fellow’s experience, if desired. University of Michigan’s department of obstetrics and gynecology has longstanding ties with two medical schools in Ghana, and is actively involved in Ghana’s Reducing Maternal Morbidity and Mortality (R3M) project. In addition, fellowship faculty members have carried out reproductive health research in nearly 50 countries, and have significant ties to WHO and other international health and family planning organizations. Three UM programs will in particular provide support: The Global Initiatives Program which promotes collaboration with developing country universities and community based organizations in research and programs to reduce maternal mortality; The Global REACH Program, which facilitates health research, education, and collaboration among the University of Michigan Medical School faculty, students, and global partners for the benefit of patients worldwide; and the International Institute, which comprises one of the nation's broadest assemblies of interdisciplinary centers and programs organized around area studies.
Lisa Harris, M.D., Ph.D, is an Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Women’s Studies at University of Michigan. She is also the Co-Medical Director of Planned Parenthood Mid-Michigan Alliance. Dr. Harris earned her AB in English Literature at Harvard College, and subsequently earned her MD from Harvard Medical School. She completed a residency in obstetrics and gynecology at University of California, San Francisco. After residency she became a Robert Wood Johnson (RWJ) Clinical Scholar. Because so many issues in reproductive medicine have as much to do with American culture as they do to biomedicine, she subsequently earned a PhD in American Culture at University of Michigan. She has been a faculty member at University of Michigan since 1998, where she teaches students across campus, in the Medical School, School of Public Health, and College of Literature, Sciences and the Arts. She directs the senior undergraduate course, “Women’s Health Issues,” in the Women’s Studies Department. Dr. Harris’ research work is usually interdisciplinary. She examines issues at the intersection of clinical obstetrical and gynecological care and law, policy, politics, ethics, history and sociology. She is currently writing a book on the history of in vitro fertilization in which she situates the rise in technological reproduction in the larger social and political contexts of changing women’s roles in society, the legalization of abortion, the rise of the religious right, and ongoing erosion of reproductive health resources for poor women of color. Dr. Harris’ clinical research interests are in pregnancy intendedness, management of early pregnancy failure, communication and management of risk in obstetrics and gynecology. Timothy RB Johnson, M.D. is Professor and Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at University of Michigan Health System. He is also a Professor in the Women’s Studies Department, and teaches undergraduate courses on Women’s Health and Men’s Health. He was recently elected to the Institute of Medicine. Under Dr. Johnson’s leadership University of Michigan’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology has become one of the top dozen ob-gyn departments in the country in terms of NIH research support. University of Michigan now consistently ranks in the top 10 departments in women’s health according to US News and World Report. The Department now has fellowship programs in all Board-certified sub-specialties. Family Planning Fellows would join a community of fellows in the ob-gyn department, and collaboration and intellectual exchange across fellowship lines is encouraged. Dr. Johnson is known nationally and internationally for his clinical and research work on fetal development, fetal monitoring, and prenatal care as a model for comprehensive primary care services for women. He has active involvement in teaching activities in Africa with numerous visits to Ghana to assist in the training of physicians and midwives. He has longstanding interest in promoting women’s access to abortion both in the US and internationally, and has provided expert testimony or been a plaintiff in several of the Michigan versions of the federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, as well as for the recent federal case.
Research and Clinical Interests of the Directors
Current Faculty Research Projects
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