Hello friends and colleagues!

My name is Nisha McKenzie. I am a practicing PA in Grand Rapids Michigan and your APAOG Membership Committee Chair. I transitioned from Family Practice into OB/GYN in 2011 and as of June 2022 I have had the amazing opportunity to open my own multispecialty medical center focusing on Gynecology, Sexual Medicine, Pelvic Health and Mental Health. It can be done! And APAOG was instrumental in my ability to achieve this goal. I am reaching out in hopes of connecting with you to see what you would like to see APAOG do for you? 

Over the past few years, we have doubled our membership and begun hosting an annual conference at a low cost for members. This year our conference will be an in person event and will host many interesting and useful workshops!

Throughout the years we have been able to develop and provide our members with OB/GYN onboarding documentation to help prepare you to work within a team of OB/GYN medical professionals, as well as Core Competencies for PAs working within or wanting to bridge the gap into Obstetrics and Gynecology. 

There are more and more PAs working within OB/GYN and I feel very strongly that PAs fill a void in this specialty that is unable to be filled by any other medical professionals. With our surgical, procedural, and comprehensive medical training, we are able to fulfill both office/clinic positions as well as surgical/hospital positions. 

APAOG is YOUR organization, and we are consistently working to continue to provide the most up to date and clinically useful training to our members in the form of conferences, social media educational posts, our journal The Artemis, our podcast, on-demand webinars, and even within our community forum.

Really, I would love to hear from you! Please let me know what I can do to help your professional journey. You may reply to this email or members can post questions or de-identified cases in our member forum. 

If you are not a member yet, I hope you will consider joining us! 

Love and Lube,
~Nisha McKenzie PA-C

Owner and Founder Women's+ Health Collective
APAOG Membership Committee Chair
AASECT Certified Sexuality Counselor
NAMS Certified Menopause Practitioner
Fellow of the International Society for the Study of Women's Sexual Health

APAOG is sharing the information below. Members are invited to participate if they wish. 

"I’m a researcher at the University of Southern California where I lead the Maternal Cannabis Lab. Our research looks at how maternal health providers make decisions about patients who use cannabis during pregnancy.

We are looking for providers who:

• Provide care to people who use cannabis during pregnancy (e.g., labor and delivery nurses, midwives, doulas, OB-GYNs, etc.)
• Practice in California
• Remote participation, one-time 60-minute discussion via Zoom
• Compensation provided! 

If you’re interested in participating, please click here for next steps and you'll be connected to our screener and scheduling portal.

Best Regards,
Rachel

Rachel Carmen Ceasar, PhD
Assistant Professor of Population and Public Health Sciences

Maternal Cannabis Lab
https://sites.usc.edu/maternal-cannabis-lab/"

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A Call to Action for PAs and PA Students

Governor Hochul released her proposal for the 2023-2024 New York State Budget including comprehensive changes that advance the PA profession in New York State - especially elimination of outdated physician to PA ratios and removal of supervision for PAs in many settings.

In the coming weeks, we will be amplifying our calls to the New York State Legislature as they draft their own proposals and begin final budget discussions. 

We need your help! NYSSPA is urging members to: 

1. Contact your NY State Senator

2. Contact your State Assembly person

3. Contact key legislators to thank them for their support and ask for continued support of the Governor’s proposed budget including:

• Senator Gustavo Rivera, NYS Senate Health Committee Chair
• Assemblymember Amy Paulin, NYS Assembly Health Committee Chair
• Senator Toby Ann Stavisky, NYS Senate Higher Education Chair
• Assembly member Patricia Fahy, NYS Assembly Higher Education Chair

Read more.

Mifepristone in the Courts
ACOG Advocacy and Health Policy | Feb 7, 2023

A case pending at the Federal District Court in Amarillo, Texas, could have catastrophic consequences on the ability of patients across the United States to access needed medication abortion care and miscarriage management. A decision in favor of the plaintiffs in this case would essentially remove mifepristone from the marketplace, affecting every single state (not just those in which abortion is currently illegal) and exacerbating the current abortion care crisis in the U.S.

Used in combination with misoprostol, mifepristone is an important component of the recommended regimen for medication abortion and for the management of early pregnancy loss. In this case, plaintiffs are suing to overturn the 2000 FDA approval of mifepristone for medication abortion, disregarding the decades of data that support the safe and effective use of mifepristone. In fact, it is because of mifepristone’s robust clinical data that ACOG has long advocated for the FDA to overturn burdensome and clinically unnecessary risk evaluation and mitigation strategy for mifepristone in order to increase access to this critical medicine.

Read more.

Presentations will be accepted for the 2023 APAOG Annual Conference until Wednesday, February 15. Presenters are asked to submit their presentation summary/ abstract to be considered. We estimate that all applicants will be notified of the status of their applications within two weeks of submission.

Submit Here

APAOG is excited to release the Maternal Health Workforce Policy. Please click here to view. Contact our office with any questions. 

January Is Cervical Cancer Awareness Month
ACOG Immunization Newsletter

Please take some time this month to consider how you can take steps to educate your patients about gynecologic cancers, spread awareness among your patients and colleagues, and help reduce the risk of gynecologic cancers.

On January 21, 2021, ACOG, alongside organizations representing a full range of practice areas that care for patients across the life span, released a joint statement on the elimination of HPV urging health care professionals to strongly recommend HPV vaccination to eligible patients and stress the benefits and safety of the HPV vaccine. According to Journal of the National Cancer Institute research, more than 35,000 cases of HPV-associated cancers are recorded in the United States each year—and the majority of them can be prevented. About 91% of cervical cancers are caused by HPV infection, further highlighting the critical importance of HPV screening and vaccination.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and ACOG recommend routine HPV vaccination for children at the target age of 11–12 years as part of the adolescent immunization platform to reduce the incidence of anogenital cancer and genital warts associated with HPV infection. For some women ages 27–45 who are previously unvaccinated, obstetrician–gynecologists and other health care professionals may use shared clinical decision making regarding HPV vaccination, considering the patient’s risk for acquisition of a new HPV infection and whether the HPV vaccine may be beneficial.

Resources for Clinicians:

• Updated Cervical Cancer Screening Guidelines
• Updated Guidelines for Management of Cervical Cancer Screening Abnormalities

Resources for Patients:

• Cervical Cancer Screening FAQ
• Cervical Cancer FAQ
• Reducing Your Risk of Cancer: Lifestyle Changes and Screening Tests FAQ
• Expert View: What I Tell Every Patient about the HPV Vaccine

APAOG, along with our newest partner, Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health (AIM), is observing Maternal Health Awareness Day. This is a national effort established by American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) to highlight the urgent maternal morbidity and mortality crisis in the U.S.

Both AIM and ACOG are sharing lots of resources and information on their social media accounts. We have shared these to help spread the word and hope you will check them out!

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter
• LinkedIn

#MaternalHealthAwarenessDay

Clinician Perspectives for Better IDD Care
Hosted by: ABC3: Action to Build Clinical Confidence and Culture

What is it?

• Focus group discussions hosted by the ABC3 team on how to best motivate and prepare clinicians to serve people with IDD.

Who is invited?

• General clinicians with background experience as physicians, nurse practitioners, dentists, and physician associates.
• We welcome all communication preferences.

How can I be involved?

• Attend a 90-minute focus group over Zoom in February.
• There will be three sets of focus groups:
• • Clinicians with IDD: February 8
  • Generalists with no formal training to serve people with IDD: February 13
  • Clinicians of color: February 21
• Meetings will be held at 5pm and 8pm EST.

For more information, click here!

Who needs a fetal echocardiogram?

Contemporary OB/GYN Journal, Vol 68 No 01, Volume 68, Issue 01 / Yalda Afshar, MD, PhD, Mark Sklansky, MD

Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the most common major birth defect and represents the leading cause of infant death from a congenital anomaly.1,2 In high-resource settings, CHD accounts for roughly 4% of all neonatal deaths and 30% to 50% of deaths related to congenital anomalies.1,2 The incidence of CHD among live births is 6 to 12 per 1000 and is likely an underestimate given both spontaneous and elective terminations with CHD.3,4 Identified risk factors for fetal CHD are broadly placed into 3 categories: maternal factors, fetal factors, and familial risk factors. Considering these risk factors, patients with increased risk should be considered for fetal echocardiography.5 Here, we review the tenets of fetal echocardiography, including the risks, benefits, and the indications for appropriate referral (Figure 1).

Read more.