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May 14, 2026

Women’s Health Content Within Reproductive-Endocrine Systems Across Three Osteopathic Schools

Key Points

This research aims to compare women's health instruction within reproductive and endocrine systems at three osteopathic schools.
Reviewed women's health content from Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine, Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine, and William Carey University College of Osteopathic Medicine.
Analyzed the organization and curriculum structures used for delivering reproductive-endocrine topics.
ARCOM had the highest number of women's health-relevant entries (183) compared to Burrell (171) and WCUCOM (49).
Burrell's reproductive-endocrine topics comprised 82% of its women's health content, while ARCOM had 72%, and WCUCOM only 45%.
Indicates that the curricular structure directly affects the emphasis on reproductive-endocrine women's health instruction.

Abstract

Women's health instruction within reproductive and endocrine systems represents a core component of preclinical medical education. To compare how three osteopathic schools deliver this material, we reviewed women's health content from Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine (Burrell), Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine (ARCOM), and William Carey University College of Osteopathic Medicine (WCUCOM). Burrell follows a systems-based spiral curriculum with daily synchronous and asynchronous instruction; ARCOM delivers an integrated organ-system helix curriculum; and WCUCOM utilizes a one-pass curriculum in which the first year focuses on foundational anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry without an organ-system framework, and the second year highlights pathological conditions and pharmacological interventions in a block-based structure. For this study, reproductive-endocrine women's health topics included pregnancy, reproductive physiology, contraception, lactation, sex hormone regulation, menstrual physiology, placental physiology, fertility, teratogens, and reproductive cancers. ARCOM contained 183 women's health-relevant entries, Burrell 171, and WCUCOM 49, with WCUCOM demonstrating the fewest total women's health topics. Reproductive-endocrine women's health content accounted for 82% of women's health topics at Burrell (140/171), 72% at ARCOM (132/183), and 45% at WCUCOM (22/49). Thus, ARCOM and Burrell concentrated the majority of women's health instruction within reproductive-endocrine domains, whereas WCUCOM demonstrated a comparatively smaller proportion of women's health content in these systems. These findings indicate that institutional structure and curricular organization may shape the emphasis placed on reproductive-endocrine women's health instruction. This abstract was presented at the American Physiology Summit 2026 and is only available in HTML format. There is no downloadable file or PDF version. The Physiology editorial board was not involved in the peer review process.

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