Media Center: Press Release

Dr. Anne Davis of Columbia Medical Center to Hold Position

Physicians for Reproductive Choice (PRCH) welcomes Anne R. Davis, MD, MPH, as the organization’s first consulting medical director. Dr. Davis, an obstetrician/gynecologist in clinical practice since 1997, will be an on-site adviser for PRCH in its efforts to protect and improve reproductive healthcare in the United States.

Dr. Davis joined PRCH in 1997 because she was drawn to the organization’s “unique doctor-as-activist model.” As consulting medical director, she says, “I hope to use my knowledge and abilities to add to PRCH’s programs and to help doctors around the country give their patients the best possible reproductive healthcare.”

Dr. Davis was on the job for less than a month when she spoke at a press conference held by Senator Hillary Clinton about abortion regulations proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services. “It was so gratifying,” she says. “I was able to make the political issues real by explaining what the regulations would do to medicine and women’s health. That’s the essence of PRCH—bringing the physician’s perspective to the fore—and I am thrilled to be involved.”

Dr. Davis is working part-time as the PRCH consulting medical director while continuing her position as assistant professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University Medical Center in Washington Heights. There, she provides the full range of reproductive health services, including first- and second-trimester abortions.

She also conducts research on contraception; right now she is studying how timing affects the insertion of IUDs after medication abortion. Dr. Davis’s most recent journal article, on oral contraceptives and medications for epilepsy, was published in Contraception. She also serves as a peer reviewer for several journals.

Says PRCH board chair Dr. Suzanne Poppema, “As a doctor and a scientist, Anne’s passion and precision make her an excellent teacher, practitioner, and advocate. Along with her expertise, she brings so much energy to PRCH. She is about to run her eighth marathon!”

Before becoming PRCH’s consulting medical director, Dr. Davis spent five years on the organization’s board. She has been interviewed about contraception and abortion in print and on television, including such outlets as the New York Times, NBC Nightly News, ABC World News Tonight, the Today Show, Glamour, Marie Claire, and Cosmopolitan.

Dr. Davis has been assistant director of the Kenneth Ryan Family Planning Fellowship at Columbia since 2004. She received her BA from Cornell University, her MD from Columbia, and her MPH from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia. She is married and has two children.

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