Awareness and Attitudes Around the New Subspecialty Within Ob/Gyn Called Complex Family Planning: A CERA Survey of Family Medicine Chairs

Background and Objectives: Family physicians play an important role in delivery of family planning services, but many factors impact scope of practice. One important factor is the development of subspecialties, such as the new subspecialty within obstetrics and gynecology called complex family planning (CFP). Methods: In 2019, we conducted a survey of family medicine department chairs as part of the Council of Academic Family Medicine Educational Research Alliance survey. We used descriptive statistics and logistic regression to test for associations between program and chair characteristics, knowledge of CFP, and attitudes regarding family planning services (complex contraceptive counseling, pregnancy options counseling, first trimester miscarriage management, and pregnancy termination). Results: The survey response rate was 54% (105/193). Only 8% of respondents were aware of the CFP subspecialty. The majority of chairs considered all queried family planning services as part of family medicine’s scope of practice, including pregnancy termination by medication abortion (77%) and by uterine aspiration (60%). Chairs of departments with a faculty champion in family planning had higher odds of advocating for all queried family planning services as part of family medicine scope of practice (OR 3.0, 1.1-8.2) than those without a faculty champion. Conclusions: Few chairs are aware of the new subspecialty of CFP, but most would advocate to maintain some form of abortion care in family medicine’s scope of practice. Given family medicine’s role in the health care safety net, supporting faculty champions in family planning is important to preserve access to family planning services for marginalized communities.