Education & Training

Project PEACHES: A sexual health primer for teen girls and pediatric residents

Chief Resident Bako Orionzi, MD, Co-Director, Project Peaches

The group of 20 pediatric residents listened intently as the 15-year-old girl told them how she had come to believe that douching with rubbing alcohol after sex would prevent pregnancy. Her pediatrician had never brought up the topic of contraception with her, so she had gone to her older cousin for advice. “Who else was I going to talk to?” she asked.

The girl, along with several other girls, was participating in a panel discussion to help pediatricians in training learn how best to take care of teens’ sexual health. “These are girls from the South Side of Chicago, who are our patients,” said Chief Resident Bako Orionzi, MD. “We need to know how to communicate medical care with them, and to do it in a way that is sensitive to such issues as the lingering distrust of the medical profession that stems from the forced sterilization of Black women many years ago.”

Orionzi co-directs Project PEACHES, which stands for Pediatricians Engaging Adolescents for Contraception, Health Education and Safe Sex. There are two parts to the program — preparing pediatric residents to be comfortable and confident caring for their patients’ sexual health and educating teen girls on preventing adolescent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. Project PEACHES has been recognized by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education with an award for innovative resident/fellow-led projects.

Now in its third year, Project PEACHES began as an academic-community partnership. Pediatric residents at the University of Chicago Medicine work with a local community nonprofit, the Gyrls in the H.O.O.D Foundation, to teach a 10-week program to small groups of teen girls at a community center. “The founder of Gyrls in the H.O.O.D wanted to educate girls about preventing unwanted pregnancies so they would stay in school, and to provide teen girls with resources so they weren’t repeatedly coming to the ED for STI testing, treatment and pregnancy tests,” said Orionzi. The residents help teach classes on contraception, menstruation and puberty, STI prevention and treatment, and relationship safety.

“We are going out into the community to meet our patients where they are, instead of waiting for them to come to us in the clinic or ED,” said Orionzi. “We are delivering preventative care based on what these teens tell us they need.”

The girls who participate in the program receive free “H.O.O.D Kits,” which contain menstrual and hygiene supplies, condoms, emergency contraception, pregnancy tests, and educational materials about contraception and STI prevention. The kits are also distributed at community events and in the UChicago Medicine Comer Children’s Hospital emergency department. “Giving a kit to a teen who comes to the ED for any reason gives residents another opportunity to discuss STIs and other reproductive health issues, and to give them information about resources so they know where to go,” said Orionzi. To date, more than 100 H.O.O.D Kits have been distributed.

The second goal of Project PEACHES is to give pediatricians in training a more comprehensive education on sexual health. Besides the panel discussion with the teen girls, residents attend a lecture series organized by the project team that brings in experts on adolescent reproductive health, from both the University of Chicago and other institutions. “Pediatricians have gaps in their education about how to discuss sexual health with their teen patients, including racial minorities, LGBTQ adolescents, or people with disabilities or special needs,” said Orionzi. Lecture topics include the history of racism in reproductive health and medicine, contraception counseling based on principles of reproductive justice, LGBTQ adolescent health, and caring for adolescent mothers and their children.

One eye-opener for Orionzi came from a teenage mom whose baby had been in the neonatal intensive care unit. “She explained that she felt supported by providers while her baby was in the hospital, but not after she brought her baby home. The baby received well-baby visits, but she was 17 and still within the purview of pediatric care. We weren’t checking to make sure she was seeing a pediatrician herself. We need to be asking that question.”

Orionzi is hopeful that with continued funding, Project PEACHES can expand its reach. “We’d like to educate larger groups of teens, perhaps in schools or other organizations teens participate in,” she said. “And we’d like to enlist more residents, perhaps those in emergency medicine and internal medicine. Residents in all specialties want to get involved in our community, and this project enables that engagement while enhancing their training.”