Teaching Women’s Health in Family Medicine

in 1995 was to develop a definition and model of women's health.I used this basic model (Figure 1) to design a curriculum for a primary care women's health fellowship.Since my fellowship, I have spent the past 28 years refining the model based on many hundreds of clinic and hospital visits of women at all life stages.My model consisted of two concentric circles.In the middle was a definition of the life cycle based on what was going on in a woman's life.If she was pregnant, she was in the reproductive life cycle, whether she was 16 years old or 40, for example.The outer circle included biology, politics, environment, culture, and family.All these factors impact a woman's life and health.To be an effective and impactful women's health clinician, one must address each factor.It is straightforward to teach residents and students about biology, but more challenging convey how external factors contribute to a woman's health.