IUD Placement: How to Reduce Anxiety and Pain for Patients

Dr Carolyn Westhoff is the Sarah Billinghurst Solomon Professor of Reproductive Health at the Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons, and Professor of Epidemiology and of Population and Family Health at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, New York, USA. She directed the NYP Title X-funded family planning clinic for 20 years and spent ten years working with the NYC DOH on introducing contraceptive care into the city’s school-based clinics.

She chaired Planned Parenthood’s National Medical Committee, worked on developing NQF-endorsed contraceptive performance measures, and collaborates with the CDC and WHO on the Medical Eligibility Criteria (MEC) and Selected Practice Guidelines for contraceptive use.  

She is the CUIMC Principal Investigator of the NICHD Contraceptive Trials Network. Dr Westhoff is also Editor-in-Chief of the journal Contraception and a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Dr Michal Yaron, is head of gynecological ambulatory unit and pediatrics and adolescent gynecology in the department of women, adolescent and pediatrics at Geneva University hospitals, Switzerland.

Dr Yaron has trained in Israel (Tel Aviv University and Shamir medical center) and in Toronto (The Hospital for Sick children) before moving to Switzerland. She is a certified FIGIJ fellow (International Federation of Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology).

Dr Yaron is very involved in the teaching of medical students at the Faculty of Medicine where she has been a teacher since 2007 and since 2018 co-responsible for Bachelor 2^nd year unit of REPRODUCTION.

Dr Yaron interests are in the areas of contraception, sexual education and young women’s empowerment and psychosomatic aspects of gynecology.

Since 2016 she is the president of the foundation "Myriam de Senarclens" (www.fdmds.org)

Patty Cason is a family nurse practitioner, trainer, and educator with a specialty in sexual and reproductive health. She has practiced for 40 years in a wide variety of clinical and academic settings and is an Assistant Clinical Professor and lecturer at the UCLA School of Nursing. Her goal is centering patients with a sex-positive, trauma-informed, anti-racist lens. Patty is a contracted consultant to training agencies, non-profits, and state departments of health across the United States.

Patty developed the PATH framework and the ASA Cycle for person-centered conversations and counseling. She wrote a seminal chapter on person-centered counseling for the 21st Edition of Contraceptive Technology and is the lead author for the 22nd Edition. Patty serves on the board of directors for the American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology, the National Medical Committee for Planned Parenthood, and several other advisory boards including the Clinical Training Center for Family Planning. She recently helped revise the CDC’s “A Guide to Taking a Sexual History”, in order to make the questions more inclusive.

Other publications include research and opinion pieces in peer reviewed journals, nationally utilized on-line learning courses, instructional videos, textbook chapters, clinical protocols, job aids, and manuals.