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An Advocacy and Leadership Curriculum to Train Socially Responsible Medical Learners

Authors :
David Benrimoh
Nebras Warsi
Emily Hodgson
Nadia Demko
Bing Yu Chen
Ruth Habte
Claudie Dandurand-Bolduc
Sarah Silverberg
Sean Xia
Laura Chu
Jessica Ruel-Laliberté
Jessica Harris
Kristin Pon
Manni Singh
Arnav Agarwal
Laura Kim
Molly Whalen-Browne
Emma Ali
Nicola Sahar
Leandra Wellmeier
Lucy Smith
Nikita Arora
Roxanne Houde
Gabriel Devlin
Jean-Ahmed Zigby
Anne Andermann
Cécile Rousseau
Mónica Ruiz-Casares
Source :
MedEdPublish, Vol 5, Iss 2 (2016)
Publication Year :
2016
Publisher :
F1000 Research Ltd, 2016.

Abstract

Physician advocacy and leadership is increasingly recognized as an important part of our social responsibility. Frameworks, such as CanMEDS, have set out definitions of health advocacy and leadership for medical education. Despite calls for mandatory advocacy and leadership teaching and potential wellness benefits, presently medical curricula do not usually teach practical advocacy and leadership skills to learners. There is also a demonstrated disconnect between staff and resident perceptions of advocacy. Our group set out to create an innovative Advocacy and Leadership Curriculum (ALC) to fill this gap. A collaboration of over twenty medical students and professors from across Canada and the U.S worked over the past year to survey students, conduct curriculum mapping, examine current literature and practices in order to inform the creation of an ALC. A competency- and milestone-based ALC was created based on this data and reviewed by experts in medical education and/or physician advocacy. This ALC addresses three spheres of advocacy: the Patient level, the Institutional level, and the Population level (which includes the Community). A guiding principle of the ALC is to form positive working partnerships with communities and patients and to collaborate with other health professionals to advocate with, and on behalf of, patients. CanMEDS-based Learning Objectives, divided into theoretical, skills-based, and application-based categories, form the core of the program. The curriculum prepares learners for real-world advocacy through longitudinal projects, interdisciplinary work, and community-based service learning. Novel engagement of other professionals and physician advocates to act as advocacy preceptors is central to the curriculum. Innovative assessment techniques- such as advocacy simulations, longitudinal study of physician advocacy activity, and focus on attitudes and behaviour as well as knowledge and practical advocacy skills- are introduced. The ALC serves as an adaptable model for the training of socially responsible medical learners who are conversant in advocacy techniques and able to advocate with patients, within institutions, and with populations. Projects resulting from the ALC will improve medical school social accountability.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
23127996 and 68784805
Volume :
5
Issue :
2
Database :
Directory of Open Access Journals
Journal :
MedEdPublish
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
edsdoj.b687848054f4a70a3ce7a481460f063
Document Type :
article