Where do you call home?
South Eastern Arizona, commuting between Tucson/Phoenix where I deliver abortion care, and a small rural city called Safford, where I practice full spectrum family medicine and obstetrics.
What are your clinical or research interests?
Clinical interests include seamless integration of inpatient and outpatient care, obstetrics, caring for geographically isolated populations, teaching medical students and residents the importance of addressing rural healthcare shortages, and dedicating my free time to abortion advocacy, ballot initiatives, and providing direct abortion care as an independent contractor to PPAZ.
What do you wish other providers knew about reproductive health, rights, and justice?
Access to abortion remains limited to major cities with a 24 hour waiting period between counseling and abortions, restricted to 15 weeks and earlier, and has already been threatened by a total ban earlier this year with threats against physicians performing abortion care. Patients from rural areas travel upwards of 300-400 miles round trip to their nearest clinic for evaluation and again for care days to weeks later, Arizona remains a vulnerable state with respect to reproductive access, and misinformation looms in the media and amongst politicians.
What local justice-centered organization do you want to uplift?
Indigenous Women Rising: abortion funds for native and indigenous women.
Tucson Abortion Support Collective: a local abortion support group that is dedicated to helping people seeking abortions.
What is bringing you joy?
Sex talks! Including healthy exploration of sex as part of a normal review of systems, engaging with people who identify how sex changes with age, discovering resources to help people through transitions
Our Meet Our Advocates series showcases the talents and passion of one of our doctors and finds out, in their own words, what inspires them to be physician advocates. Janelle Lee (MD, MS) is a Fellow in our Leadership Training Academy Class of 2025 and specializes in Family Medicine and Obstetrics and Gynecology.