NaProTechnology Fellowship (St. John Paul the Great Fellowship)
The NaProTechnology Fellowship, formally the St. John Paul the Great Fellowship in Medical and Surgical NaProTechnology, is a one-year, technically eleven-month, postgraduate program run by the Saint Paul VI Institute. It trains physicians in both halves of restorative reproductive care. The medical side covers cycle-based hormone evaluation and diagnostic workup built on chart data. The surgical side covers reconstructive pelvic surgery aimed at repairing disease rather than bypassing it.
Completing the fellowship confers a surgical distinction with no acronym of its own. A physician who has finished it is called a former NaPro Fellow, or described as fellowship-trained. Those are descriptions of training completed, not post-nominal letters, and they are never listed alongside FCMC or CFCMC. In practice, the certification most NaProTechnology physicians carry is CFCMC, Certified FertilityCare Medical Consultant, issued by the American Academy of FertilityCare Professionals. Fellowship completion works as a recognized application route into that certification, not a substitute for it.
This kind of dedicated surgical training has decades of precedent. In the late 1980s, reconstructive pelvic surgeon Dr. Veasy Buttram started a one-year fellowship in reproductive surgery. The timing explains why: after the first IVF birth in 1978, reproductive endocrinology training shifted almost entirely toward IVF and the other artificial reproductive technologies, and emphasis on restorative surgical technique fell away from mainstream programs. Restorative reproductive surgery kept being taught while the wider field moved toward bypassing the diseases it once operated to repair.
A former NaPro Fellow works from the same chart data as any NaProTechnology Medical Consultant, carried forward through a full year of added surgical training. Couples researching a surgeon's background, and clinicians making a referral, can look for the phrase fellowship-trained as the marker of that year completed.
This content is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Consult an RRM clinician or healthcare provider for guidance specific to your situation.