Welcome New JFCAC Chair

I am honored and humbled to be your Junior Fellow College Advisory Council chair this year. First and foremost, I want you to know that I am always accessible to you, the Junior Fellows of ACOG, so if you have any concerns, questions, or comments, please reach out to me at  [email protected].

Second, I want to take a moment to recognize the stress and chaos of the last few years and the incredibly challenging years to come. We are still in the midst of a pandemic that has shown us the cracks in our health care system and our own institutions and left a lot of us burned out and jaded. We have watched as the world became more aware of racial disparities in policing, employment, and health care—but despite this increased attention, injustices persist without much change. And now we are on the eve of the Supreme Court of the United States unveiling an attack on our profession and our patients by reversing protections for abortion care that have been in place for nearly the last fifty years. This change promises to threaten us with prison time and loss of licensure for providing the best and most appropriate evidence-based care to our patients and open the floodgates to regulation of contraceptives, gender-affirming care, and LGBTQIA+ protections.

In the midst of this chaos, we are also navigating residency, fellowship, studying for licensure examinations, transitioning into practice, and determining our earliest career journeys. If at the end of the day that's all you have the bandwidth for, no one could blame you. But if you are like me and want to bend the arc of the universe a little further towards justice, then ACOG needs you, your leadership, and your advocacy now more than ever.

I hope that you'll take the time to explore the Junior Fellow webpage to learn more about opportunities to become involved in Section leadership, District leadership, and national committee work. I hope that you’ll learn about the District, Section, and national meetings that bring together some of the brightest minds in obstetrics and gynecology to discuss some of the most cutting-edge science and clinical innovations in our field. I hope that you’ll seek opportunities to participate in some of the day-to-day on-the-ground advocacy work going on in your state and nationally.

I also hope that as you conduct work in your residency, fellowship, or practice group you’ll consider submitting that work for awards and recognition from ACOG so that other members can see what you're working on and we can all build on each other's ideas. Don't forget to submit written opinion pieces to Obstetrics & Gynecology’s new Junior Fellow Perspectives, an editorial space just for Junior Fellows to express themselves about current affairs in obstetrics and gynecology!

As always, if you have questions about how to get involved, I'm available and so are your Junior Fellow Section and District leaders. Don't hesitate to reach out to any of us about ways to make a difference.

Finally, for all of you who may find this a little too pat, who want change and revision and who don't see yourselves or your goals at the table: please, please, please reach out to me with your concerns. My goal this year is to hear you all out and represent you in the best way I know how, and I need your requests, concerns, questions, and especially critiques as we attempt to make lasting change.