FACTS Ambassador Feature: Sarah Gilpatrick

How FACTS changed one nurse’s career trajectory

By: Mariel Padilla

Editor’s Note: FACTS Ambassadors are medical or health professional students and residents from across the country (and the world!) who desire to learn more about fertility awareness-based methods (FABMs) and choose to share this information with colleagues to educate them about FABMs. This month, we are featuring Sarah Gilpatrick, a nurse, FABM instructor, and Family Nurse Practitioner student at the University of Maryland, who has actively participated in FACTS research and conferences. It’s not too late to sign up for our upcoming FACTS conference in Tuscon, AZ on Friday, February 10^th. Register today!

When Sarah graduated from the nursing program at DeSales University in 2016, she was not very familiar with fertility awareness-based methods (FABMs). Her primary interest was pediatrics or family medicine, and she had spent several years working in the cardiac intensive care unit and the neonatal intensive care unit.

Sarah started learning more about FABMs in 2017, just before she got married.

“As my husband and I were learning it for our own use, it was really interesting to me,” Sarah said, “especially after I had our daughter and experienced the changes in cycles associated with that. I thought to myself. “We don’t learn any of this as women, and it’s just basic physiology.”

“We don’t learn any of this as women, and it’s just basic physiology.”

Sarah decided as a health professional, she wanted to teach other women about how to achieve and avoid pregnancy with the use of FABMs. It was during this period, while she was looking to find more women and couples who might be interested in learning FABMs, that she stumbled across FACTS online.

“I decided to start teaching the Marquette Method at the beginning of the pandemic,” Sarah said. “As I was coming to the end of the teacher training program, I was looking for clients for my practicum and somehow I came across FACTS on Instagram. I discovered the FACTS website, attended one of their conferences and then really got involved.”

Sarah made quick connections, learned more about the different kinds of methods available and soon became a FACTS ambassador. As a student ambassador, Sarah said she became involved in research on a shared decision-making tool for FABMs that was being piloted at doctors’ offices.

“At the beginning of my journey becoming an FABM instructor and working with FACTS, I wasn’t quite sure if this is where I wanted my career to go,” Sarah said. “I was still interested in pediatrics and I liked the idea of family medicine, but I was also considering if I really wanted to focus on incorporating FABMs into my practice.”

After attending meetings, becoming connected with other interested medical professionals and shadowing them in their day-to-day work with patients, Sarah realized: “Wow, this is really what I want to do.”

“I’ve just loved the work that I’ve done with FABMs and women’s health the most out of all the experiences that I’ve had,” Sarah said. “I think in the last year or so, FACTS exposed me to different people who work with FABMs, who integrate these methods into their career and their care of patients. And then I did the FACTS women’s health elective, and I just loved that – the clinical experiences were really helpful, just being able to observe people in the field.”

“FACTS exposed me to different people who work with FABMs, who integrate these methods into their career and their care of patients”

Sarah said she thinks the work that FACTS does is so important in educating medical professionals on how to treat the “underlying root of the problem” when patients have questions or concerns.

“I feel like we should be teaching women about how their cycles work and how their hormones are affecting their cycles and being able to troubleshoot their own cycles with just normal things, like stress and diet and lifestyle, when they’re young teenagers or young women,” Sarah said. “It’s a disservice to women to not know all of this information. So I feel like it’s really important for us as medical professionals to at least reach the women in our practice and teach them about these methods.”

“I feel like we should be teaching women about how their cycles work and how their hormones are affecting their cycles and being able to troubleshoot their own cycles with just normal things, like stress and diet and lifestyle, when they’re young teenagers or young women.”

Mariel Padilla

Mariel Padilla is a journalist working with us as editor of the FACTS blog. In her full-time job, Mariel writes about the intersection between gender, politics and policy — but she was introduced to the FACTS team by her brother, Mikey. When she’s not writing or editing, she’s probably reading, painting or playing with her niece and nephew who live down the street.