Abortion Care Education for Advanced Practice Providers began training in 2024. We host in-person workshops in abortion care, especially for nurse practitioners (NPs), certified nurse midwives (CNMs), and physician associates (PAs) and will soon offer a self-paced, modular online Continuing Education course in abortion care. Our team has trained hundreds of learners across disciplines including NPs, CNMs, PAs, registered nurses, licensed midwives, doulas, and physicians. We are funded by the Reproductive Health Service Corps, a statewide, interdisciplinary abortion training initiative in California. We are also proud to collaborate with other training programs for nurses, midwives, and APPs at UCSF and other institutions.
Our team
Samantha Auerbach, PhD, MSN, BSN, WHNP-BC (she/her) is a sexual and reproductive health nurse practitioner, researcher, and advocate. Sam is an ACTIONS Postdoctoral Scholar at UCSF and Senior Research Scientist at the Center for Research on Women and Gender at University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC). Her research supports abortion access and decision-making in the context of increasingly restricted avenues to care. She is working to build and diversify the abortion workforce through implementing and evaluating abortion training programs for APPs with the Reproductive Health Service Corps in California and RADIANT Fellowship at UIC. Her other work includes documenting the safety and efficacy of medication abortion provision by APPs, and expanding evaluation strategies for abortion training programs.
Nikia Grayson, DNP, MSN, MPH, MA, CNM, FNP-C (she/her) is a Reproductive Justice informed public health activist, anthropologist and family nurse-midwife who has devoted her life to serving and empowering people in underserved communities. Dr. Grayson has more than 15 years experience working in public health and nursing, with her more recent work focusing on reproductive rights and justice, birth justice, and midwifery. She has a deep love for midwifery and growing the workforce of midwives and birth workers of colors in the south. Dr. Grayson is an Associate Professor and Specialty Co-Director of the certified nurse midwifery program at UCSF School of Nursing. In addition to her role at UCSF, she is the Chief Clinical Officer at CHOICES Memphis Center for Reproductive Health, where they have opened the first non-profit comprehensive reproductive health care center in the country and the first birth center in the city. She is also a member of the Board of Directors for SisterReach, the only Reproductive Justice organization in Tennessee. Nikia graduated from Howard University with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in communications and public health respectively, from University of Memphis with a master’s in medical anthropology and from the University of Tennessee with a master’s in nursing and a doctorate in nurse practice. She completed her post-master’s certificate in midwifery at Frontier Nursing University.
Nikki Lanshaw, MPH (she/her) is a public health program director, researcher, and advocate based in the Eastern Sierra. As a Senior Program Director at UCSF Institute for Health Policy Studies and School of Nursing, she manages the Abortion Care Training Incubator for Outstanding Nurse Scholars program and two Reproductive Health Service Corps-funded initiatives. Her professional interests include reproductive health workforce development, nursing and midwifery education, health care reform, the operationalization of reproductive justice theory, and expanding access to sexual and reproductive health care in rural areas. She is currently a Co-Chair of the Nurses, Midwives, and APCs Special Interest Group at the Society of Family Planning. She previously served on the board of Eastern Sierra Pride and ACCESS Reproductive Justice and as the Policy Chair of the Sexual and Reproductive Health Section of the American Public Health Association. Nikki received an MPH from University of California, Berkeley.
Becca Neuwirth, MSN, NP (she/her) has been a nurse practitioner since 2008, working exclusively in sexual and reproductive health. She has worked in general obstetrics and gynecology, as well as in specialty care in chronic pelvic pain and urogynecology. She currently works at Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco in Ob/Gyn, is volunteer faculty in the FNP program at UCSF, and a is consultant for the Reproductive Health Service Corps abortion training grant for advance practice nurses through UCSF.