About The National Curriculum in Reproductive Psychiatry
The National Curriculum in Reproductive Psychiatry is the joint work of dozens of volunteer clinician-educators from across the country. All NCRP curriculum is developed and rigorously maintained by our dedicated volunteer experts and module leaders. Their commitment ensures our interactive curriculum always reflects the latest research and best practices in reproductive psychiatry.
mission
The mission of the National Curriculum in Reproductive Psychiatry is to advance knowledge about the diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric disorders throughout the reproductive life span. To build a common foundation for education and training in this emerging field, and to inspire lifelong learning about reproductive psychiatry, particularly during pregnancy and the postpartum period.
our history
2013
NCRPwas conceived in 2013 at the Biennial Perinatal Mental Health meeting, when a group of academic psychiatrists came together to present a symposium on the current state of education in reproductive psychiatry.
In the wake of that symposium, the presenters formed the National Task Force on Women’s Reproductive Mental Health, with an agenda to research the current state of education in reproductive psychiatry and move toward national standards.*
2014-2017
Since that symposium in 2013, the National Task Force has conducted two surveys (of residency directors and fellowship directors) , to assess the current state of education in the field. **
Our research revealed that few residency programs offered substantive training in reproductive psychiatry. The primary barriers were a lack of qualified faculty and limited curricular time, as reproductive psychiatry is not an ACGME-required element of psychiatric residency training. We also recognized that programs would be unlikely to pay for a curriculum in a non-required area, and that a broader group of learners—including advanced practice nurses, general psychiatrists, obstetrician-gynecologists, and residents in pediatrics, OB-GYN, and family medicine—could benefit from this training.
3 primary purposes
We therefore set out to create an interactive, web-based national curriculum, based on our competency guide, that could serve three purposes:
To provide materials to be used in the classroom using non-expert facilitators, which could be freely adopted by any residency program in any specialty
To provide self-study materials for trainees or practicing health care providers to learn on their own
To provide rigorous CME assessments that, if completed in their entirety, could represent an examination of a trainee’s knowledge in the entire field of reproductive psychiatry, with an eye toward certification and eventual sub-specialty recognition
6 Core Knowledge Areas
We identified six core knowledge areas for specialists in this area:
Relationship between reproductive cycle stages and psychopathology
Epidemiology, pathophysiology, and phenomenology of psychiatric disorders during pregnancy and the postpartum, including pharmacokinetic changes
Treatment of perinatal psychiatric disorders, including but not limited to psychopharmacology
Psychiatric symptoms related to infertility, pregnancy loss, birth trauma, and delivery of offspring with major health problems
Premenstrual mood disorders
Symptoms related to perimenopause
2017
In 2017, the National Task Force began a partnership with Marcé of North America (MONA, formerly the Perinatal Mental Health Society), which had simultaneously been working on a fellowship-level curriculum. MONA provided critical organizational infrastructure in the early years of NCRP, and our volunteer faculty set out to create a curriculum that could be used in a modular fashion for residency education.
2018-2019
Our first six modules were piloted in 9 residency programs in 2018-2019, with another seven piloted in 2019-2020. From research conducted with this early group of learners, we were able to determine that our curriculum improved both medical knowledge and confidence in treating women at times of reproductive transition.***
The NCRP has won numerous educational awards, including the Educational Innovator Award from the Johns Hopkins Institute for Excellence in Education (2018), the Scholarship in Teaching Award from Case Western Reserve University (2019), and the Creativity in Education Award from the American College of Psychiatrists (2021). Crucialseed funding was provided by a Faculty Innovation in Education Award from the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.
In 2021, NCRP leaders co-edited and published the APA Textbook of Women’s Reproductive Mental Health—the first comprehensive, evidence-based textbook in the field. This landmark publication helped define reproductive psychiatry as a formal subspecialty within psychiatry, established national standards for education and care, and is now widely used by training programs and clinicians across disciplines. Its release marked a major milestone in advancing NCRP’s mission to translate science into accessible, practice-oriented education.
2022-Present
Once our first thirteen modules were complete, the NCRP leaders realized that we had created enough material to be used as a standardized curriculum for reproductive psychiatry fellowships, if used in its entirety. To make this happen, and to study whether our materials were effective in this context, we decided to create a virtual didactic series using experts to teach our curriculum over 40 weeks to fellows in reproductive psychiatry and consult-liaison psychiatry fellowships nationwide. To date, we have trained over 120 fellows, and the series now serves as the primary didactic curriculum for the majority of reproductive psychiatry fellowships in the U.S. This series was honored with the Stoudemire Innovations in Education Award from the Academy of Consult Liaison Psychiatry.
It also became clear to us that psychiatry residents and fellows were not the only audience using our materials, and we started 2 new programs to address the needs of other learners: NCRPxOB, for obstetrics & gynecology learners, and NCRP-Intensive, a CME event for clinicians of any specialty already in practice. Research on those programs is ongoing. In addition, we adhere to a two-year schedule for updating existing modules, and have also created a number of new modules, including those focused on health equity and infant mental health.
NCRP Leadership
The National Curriculum in Reproductive Psychiatry is led by the following individuals:
Lauren M. Osborne, MD
Weill Cornell Medicine
Chair, NCRP
President-Elect, MONA
Sarah Nagle-Yang, MD
University of Colorado School of Medicine
Co-Chair, NCRP
Julia R. Frew
Geisel School of Medicine/Dartmouth Health
Secretary-Treasurer, NCRP
The National Curriculum in Reproductive Psychiatry is an enormous step forward to provide a comprehensive educational program for health care professionals to improve care for pregnant and breastfeeding women with psychiatric disorders.
Katherine L. Wisner, MD, Norman and Helen Asher Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Obstetrics and Gynecology, Northwestern University