In keeping with the goal of translating progressive research into new best practices for clinical care, the Division of Women's Health is implementing women’s health educational initiatives across each level of medical education. The division’s clinical sites throughout Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) offer unique opportunities to medical students, residents, fellows, and physicians to learn the most recent updates on sex- and gender-informed care.
Ambulatory Care for Women: An Interdisciplinary Approach (IND514.23)
Building on our partnership with Harvard Medical School (HMS), we have developed a women’s health clinical elective for medical students that emphasizes new understandings in gender-informed medicine across a person’s lifespan. Students will gain a multifaceted perspective on women’s health through learning in varied clinical environments. The elective is primarily based at the interdisciplinary Gretchen S. and Edward A. Fish Center for Women’s Health (Fish Center) and offers unique opportunities in outpatient training in primary care, medical specialties, neurology, behavioral health and family planning, among other specialties. Students will also have the opportunity to participate in the division affiliated C.A.R.E. Clinic and the Bridges to Moms Clinic. The course includes a focus on career development in sex- and gender-specific medicine and offers mentorship opportunities in the field. The curriculum spans the prevention, presentation, and treatment of disease in women, with an emphasis on trauma-informed care.
Course Directors:
Eve Rittenberg, MD
Kari Braaten, MD, MPH
The Division of Women’s Health is involved in a wide range of teaching venues for the internal medicine residency including morning report, ambulatory didactic sessions, noon conferences and precepting. The Fish Center is the second-largest internal medicine ambulatory teaching site at BWH with approximately twelve internal medicine residents per year in addition to serving as a training site for fellows in gastroenterology and neurology. The Fish Center’s primary care faculty are heavily involved in teaching and mentoring students, and residents can arrange for additional elective time with primary care and the other specialties. Training in advanced family planning may be available to selected residents as well.
The Division of Women’s Health also hosts a women’s health interest group for internal medicine residents, meeting quarterly to connect residents with faculty who share interest in women’s health and to discuss timely and relevant papers.
The Division of Women’s Health has hosted several special Medical Grand Rounds in honor of the Yousuf and Estrellita Karsh Visiting Professorship in Women’s Health. This visiting professorship in women’s health, among the first in the nation, brings in renowned leaders in women’s health to present to, and discuss with, medical staff the most significant and recent advances in women’s health.
Future events:
Friday, May 5, 2023 from 12 noon - 1 pm
Hybrid: Marshall A. Wolf Conference Center or Zoom
Childhood Adversity and Cardiometabolic Health: Examining sex differences
Speaker: Shakira Suglia, ScD, MS
Professor and Vice Chair, Department of Epidemiology
Co-Director of Graduate Studies, PhD Epidemiology Program
Emory University Rollins School of Public Health
Past events:
2022 | Tamarra James-Todd, PhD, MPH, Director, Organic Chemicals Research Core, Harvard Chan NIEHS Center for Environmental Health; Mark and Catherine Winkler Associate Professor of Environmental Reproductive Epidemiology
Environmental Justice and Women's Health: A Novel Lens for Understanding Reproductive Health Disparities across the Life Course · Click here to watch the video.
2021 | Marcia L. Stefanick, PhD, Director, Stanford Women’s Health and Sex Differences in Medicine (WHSMD) Center
Gender Matters: Why Sex as a Biological Variable is not Enough in Precision Health · Click here to watch the video.
2019 | Stephanie Faubion, MD, MBA, FACP, Penny and Bill George Director, Mayo Clinic Center for Women's Health; Medical Director, The North American Menopause Society
Menopause Management in 2019 · Click here to watch the video.
2016 | Doris A. Taylor, PhD, FAAC, FAHA, Director, Regenerative Medicine Research & Director, Center for Cell and Organ Biotechnology, Texas Heart Institute
Considering Sex and Gender in Cardiovascular Repair · Click here to watch the video.
2013 | Inaugural Estrellita and Yousuf Karsh Visiting Professorship in Women’s Health Symposium: Women’s Health: The Future is Now
Sonia Anand, MD, PhD, McMaster University
Molly Carnes, MD, MS, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health
Rose Fife, MD, MPH, Indiana University School of Medicine
JoAnn Manson, MD, DrPH, BWH & Harvard Medical School
Noel Bairey Merz, MD, Cedar-Sinai Medical Center
Our Women’s Health Clinical Seminars, hosted by the Gretchen A. and Edward S. Fish Center for Women’s Health, offers the most up-to-date research on how primary care providers can coordinate and treat women’s specific health conditions across multiple disciplines. Begun in 2005, the monthly seminars are led by both HMS faculty and outside experts and address a wide variety of topics. In previous series, experts presented on cancer screenings, mental health, headaches and migraines, cardiovascular disease (risk assessment and prevention), contraception, polycystic ovarian syndrome, menopause management, implicit bias and somatization from the perspective of women’s health.
Course Director:
Kari Braaten, MD, MPH
The seminar series’ learning objectives include:
Upcoming seminars: the seminars meet monthly at noon via Zoom, see contact details below for more information.
The Division of Women’s Health hosts an annual Harvard Medical School CME symposium, entitled “Advancing Women’s Health: A Yearly Update”. This live virtual course educates clinicians caring for women on current, evidence-based management of medical conditions that uniquely or disproportionately affect women, or present differently in women, and therefore require different prevention and treatment plans. Through didactic presentations and Q&A, faculty experts will provide a comprehensive review of treatment recommendations derived from their clinical expertise and peer-reviewed research on medical conditions affecting women from a broad range of specialties.
Participants report that this symposium has equipped them with knowledge that can be directly translated into patient care and clinic practice improvements:
“Speakers were very knowledgeable and provided practical strategies that I feel I can implement in practice immediately.”
“The new information I got here will help me provide additional help to the group of women I work with. I will apply them in my skills and watch how it will improve quality of care where I work.”
“Based on today's educational session my practice will improve”
“The new information I got here will help me provide additional help to the group of women I work with.”
“Excellent speakers, solid data, a lot of great information - it was brilliant!”
“The topics were very diverse and touch aspects that I can apply in my practice”
Course Directors:
Kathryn Rexrode, MD, MPH
Eve Rittenberg, MD
Annie Lewis-O’Connor, NP, PhD, MPH
Future events: October 27, 2023 · Click here for more details.
For questions or more information about any of the programs or activities listed above, please contact Stacey Escalante: snescalante@bwh.harvard.edu | 617-525-9684.
Please see the Research Education and Training for more information about research training opportunities.
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