Creating Healing Spaces and Conversations
About
Receiving reproductive health care can be a sensitive or even scary experience for patients, particularly those who have experienced adversity and trauma. Participants will review patient cases and hear from a family doctor who is doing this work in a reproductive health clinic setting. The webinar will address how the clinical team can apply trauma-informed principles to facilitate safe, collaborative, and empowering patient experiences; to administer sensitive screenings, including Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) screening, in a trauma-informed way; and to respond to screenings and disclosures with compassion and competence, even within the constraints of a short visit. Led by Sara Johnson, MD, FACOG, an OB/GYN and adviser to the ACEs Aware initiative, the webinar will also include a discussion with Anastasia Coutinho, MD, MHS, Family Physician and Agency Wellness Champion at La ClĂnica de la Raza.
Learning Objectives
- Describe a trauma-informed clinical environment and how to use verbal and non-verbal communication to create safe and empowering experiences for patients
- Describe a trauma-informed process for sensitive screenings, including ACEs
- Demonstrate skills to discuss the results of ACE screening, support resilience, and consider patient-centered plans of care
Professional Credit
- This activity provides the following types of credit: AMA, ANCC, ASWB, ABIM-MOC, ABP-MOC, AAPA, APA.
- 1.0 credits are available.
- Activity document
Featuring
Sara Johnson, MD leads efforts to advance trauma-informed care in reproductive health and translate the science of resilience and adversity into clinical practice and policy. Dr. Johnson serves as an advisor to UCAAN on training and strategy for reproductive health. A practicing obstetrician gynecologist at La Clinica de la Raza in Oakland, she led the organizations California ACEs Learning and Quality Improvement Collaborative (CALQIC) project, which implemented prenatal ACE screening, and with an ACEs Aware grant developed a supplemental training entitled ACE Screening and Trauma-Informed Care in Reproductive Health. She is the lead author of recent recommendations from the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative, Addressing Adverse Childhood and Adult Experiences During Prenatal Care, published in the June 2023 edition of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Anastasia Coutinho, MD, MHS is a board-certified family physician who works with La Clinica de la Raza, and Lifelong Medical Center. She provides direct clinical services in Concord, California and serves as the Provider Wellness Champion across their organization. As a practicing physician, Dr. Coutinho appreciates the joy and gratification of working with patients to improve their health and is privileged to learn everyday from her patients' lives and experiences. She recognizes the importance of both individual and team wellness and resilience as the foundation of providing excellent quality and safe care to patients. Dr. Coutinho graduated from the University of Vermont College of Medicine and completed her training at the Santa Rosa Family Medicine Residency Program. She previously graduated from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.