INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana University School of Medicine is already feeling the effects of the state’s abortion ban.
“We’ve already been in rapid planning mode to address how this is going to affect our patient care as well as our education," said Dr. Nicole Scott, the OB-GYN residency program director with IU Health. “Abortion care training is still a requirement for OB-GYN residents and the new legislation limits that to some degree for our resident doctors.”
Because of the ban, the IU School of Medicine is sending residents to hospitals in Illinois.
“We firmly believe that this is part of a comprehensive gynecologic training and we still want to provide that training for our residents," said Scott.
She believes the new law will have residency candidates thinking twice before they practice in Indiana.
“We are about a week away from entering our recruitment season, which we’ll be reviewing over a thousand applications, interviewing 120 people for next year’s match of 10 OB-GYNs to train here in the state of Indiana," said Scott. "We’re concerned this is going to affect the quality of candidates that we receive and certainly the education we can provide.”
The worry isn’t just about recruitment but hiring those doctors after residency.
“At baseline, we typically retain approximately 50% of graduates from all specialties," said Scott. "Within OB-GYN we typically retain three to four that stay in the state of Indiana and I do believe this will affect their likelihood of staying in the state.”
That is leaving doctors like Scott frustrated.
“There’s no other specialty that is legislated to the degree that obstetrics and gynecology is and that really wears on your spirit," she said.