Philip Darney, MD ’68, MSc, and Uta Landy, PhD : 2021 UCSF Emeriti Retired Faculty Award for Excellence

As they did over their 40 years before retiring, Dr. Landy and Dr. Darney have devoted their efforts as retired faculty to inspiring, mentoring, educating, and providing service through:

• Distinguished research.
• Advising and mentoring students or faculty members.
• Leading in education and curriculum innovation within their discipline.
• Guiding advances in education and community service.
• Leading the establishment of professional public service and policy.

Dr. Landy is a global leader and innovator in reproductive health education. She has received every major professional recognition in the field of family planning. Dr. Landy led the National Abortion Federation, the first professional organization of independent outpatient abortion clinics, where she established a continuing education program and standards for outpatient abortion care. She also founded two national medical education initiatives, the Ryan Residency Training Program in Abortion and Family Planning and the Fellowship in Family Planning. These programs, based at UCSF, have transformed graduate and postgraduate education with family-planning training programs at more than 100 medical schools

Dr. Darney is distinguished professor emeritus in the UCSF Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences; and director emeritus and senior scholar at the UCSF Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health. Under Dr. Darney’s leadership, the Bixby Center conducted investigations of contraception and abortion for the California and federal governments, foundations, and pharmaceutical industry and trained gynecologists from all over the world in family planning research.  Over the past 50 years, Dr. Darney has served as scientific adviser and field evaluator to the US Agency for International Development, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and many nongovernmental organizations.

Drs. Darney and Landy’s great contribution was to correct what was, in retrospect, a glaring deficiency in obstetrics and gynecology training programs: formal training in the safe performance of pregnancy termination, and beyond that, in family planning. Their work is directly responsible for the integration of formal training in family planning in OB-GYN residencies and for the creation of specialty fellowship programs in that vital discipline.

Since retirement, Dr. Landy and Dr. Darney have documented the progress in medical education, research, and policy based on the two programs they founded in their book, Enhancing Women’s Health through Medical Education – A Systems Approach in Family Planning and Abortion, published by Cambridge University Press in spring 2021.

The book, comprising 35 chapters by family planning experts in the US and abroad, describes the history and impact of the two training initiatives of the Ryan Residency Training Program in Abortion and Family Planning and the Fellowship in Family Planning, helping ensure that training and research in family planning are routinely integrated into medical education. Without integration, subsequent generations of health care professionals will not be prepared to incorporate evidence-based family planning into their practices, teaching, or research. Omission of this crucial component prevents the cultural and professional normalization of an often stigmatized and embattled aspect of women’s health.