Précis: The road to advocacy comes through teaching future physicians the skills to make effective change using a structured advocacy elective.
Abstract: Physicians are in a unique position to serve as advocates on an individual and societal level. Increasing legal restrictions impacting reproductive health care decision-making put obstetricians/gynecologists in a position where we must have the knowledge and skills to successfully engage in advocacy. Yet undergraduate medical education, specifically in Obstetrics & Gynecology, lacks structured training in advocacy or health policy. To meet this need, we developed and implemented a one-month advocacy elective curriculum at the Uniformed Services University. During this workshop, participants will learn how to develop and implement a reproductive health advocacy curriculum that can be tailored to meet their local needs.
In this 75-minute workshop, we will delve into our one-month reproductive health advocacy rotation curriculum. We will demonstrate the curriculum and its components, highlighting how we specifically structured it to address the needs of our medical students. This will include discussing how we connected with different resources and gained approval for the rotation as a medical student elective.
Following the demonstration, we will break into smaller groups for a brainwriting session. In these small groups, participants will consider: 1. How advocacy is currently taught in their institutions 2. Needs for advocacy in their local areas 3. How to overcome current hurdles and implement an advocacy curriculum at their home institution We will then regroup and share the above ideas and further discuss ways to overcome implementation hurdles.
Participants will be given a toolkit with a sample advocacy curriculum that can be modified to fit their local setting.
Topics: 2025, Faculty, Residency Director, Professionalism, Interpersonal & Communication Skills, GME, UME, Independent Study, Public Health, Advocacy,
