Polishing Resident Advocacy Curriculums in Primary Care

Abstract

In 2021, our residency program applied and was awarded the advocacy training grant award through the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Community Practice Training Initiative (AAP-CPTI). Our training program lacked a formal advocacy curriculum. With this grant, we addressed this deficiency and created a unique and original advocacy curriculum to enhance resident education in our training program on how to be advocates for their patients. The goal of the advocacy curriculum was to teach advocacy skills in the areas of media platform utilization, communicating with legislative representatives, and reviewing community resources available relevant to our patient population. To assess the efficacy of the curriculum, surveys were administered to the residents to assess how they prioritized advocacy in their career and if the workshops met the goal of knowledge enhancement. If this goal was met, then the curriculum structure could be implemented for future academic years.