Studies have shown that poor access to maternity care has attributed to maternal and infancy mortality in the United States. Researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and the American Board of Family Medicine found that almost 60% of recent family medicine residency graduates reported that the opportunity to do deliveries was not available in the practice they joined and/or that lifestyle considerations influenced their decision not to include deliveries.

The data, obtained from the 2016 Family Medicine National Graduate Survey, indicated that 87% of the 2000 plus respondents did not deliver babies. Removing barriers and creating viable work environments for family physicians who want to include obstetrics in their practice would increase access to maternity care and may decrease maternal morbidity.

The complete article, Barriers Faced by Family Medicine Graduates Interested in Performing Obstetric Deliveries, can be found here.

Inquiries and correspondence should be addressed to: Tyler W. Barreto, MD, 7703 Floyd Curl Drive MC 7795, San Antonio, TX 78229-3900.