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MSFC Update - February 2005 Inside Update: From the MSFC President-Elect THE UPS AND DOWNS OF 2004 MOTIVATE US ONWARD IN 2005! With its highs and lows, 2004 was a year of triumph, excitement and, yes, frustration. The MSFC year began with our recordbreaking attendance at the Annual Meeting in New Orleans where over 300 medical students came together for a weekend of learning, networking, and planning. Exactly one week later, over 400 MSFC members joined us on the Mall in Washington, DC at the March for Women’s Lives. While ours was a relatively small group in that mass of a million pro-choice activists, our unique message — We are tomorrow’s abortion providers—rang loud and clear! What makes MSFC so powerful are the thousands of medical students from almost every state and province willing to commit time and a unique voice to the fight to ensure reproductive freedom for every woman in the US and Canada. During 2004, the number of medical schools with MSFC groups grew to 117 — with a group on three of every four medical school campuses. We are working now on helping students establish groups on another four campuses and hope to be found at 80% of medical schools by the end of 2005! Supporting this effort and our already existing groups, an exciting new pilot program of regional leadership training programs supplement our annual LTP and help ensure that more of our activists are able to develop their leadership skills. MSFC, with the valuable help of our Past President, Angel Foster, has found a great new way to use its voice in academia. In 2004 we sponsored our first poster session at the Annual Meeting and had 12 posters showing MSFC medical student members’ research on reproductive health issues. We also successfully presented MSFC’s Curriculum Mapping Project results at the annual meetings of both the Association of Professors of Gynecology & Obstetrics and the National Abortion Federation. This demonstration of the lack of reproductive health training to those who have the clout to make change is having a powerful impact. To get past some of the lows of 2004, this special advocacy issue of the Update highlights the ways that medical students, physicians, and other health professionals can use their voices in an organized way to sustain and increase reproductive choices. From the halls of Congress and the courts to the walls of academia and even in the media, ours is both a powerful voice and an important message. Now and in the coming years, we will be using our voices in stronger, more targeted ways to ensure that women will always be able to choose when to become parents. In 2005 we already have plans to present data about our work at several medical meetings. We hope to work closely with partner organizations to give our student groups more opportunities to participate in legislative advocacy activities, as well. 2005 brings added excitement when, for the first time, we hold our meeting this year independent of the National Abortion Federation meeting. Our two Annual Meetings had both grown so large that we were having difficulty finding hotels able to accommodate us. Fortunately, NAF’s membership of incredible role models and mentors is working with us to ensure a powerful presence at our Annual Meeting, both as workshop faculty and as panelists for our popular “Practitioner’s Perspectives” sessions. Please join us there — I can’t wait to see each of you at our 12th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia on March 5th and 6th! Melissa Fritsche
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