A Multi-Institutional Medical Educational Collaborative

Abstract

Educational collaboratives offer a promising approach to disseminate educational resources and provide faculty development to advance residents' training, especially in areas of novel curricular content; however, their impact has not been clearly described. Advocacy training is a recently mandated requirement of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education that many programs struggle to meet.The authors describe the formation (in 2007) and impact (from 2008 to 2010) of 13 California pediatric residency programs working in an educational collaboration ("the Collaborative") to improve advocacy training. The Collaborative defined an overarching mission, assessed the needs of the programs, and mapped their strengths. The infrastructure required to build the collaboration among programs included a social networking site, frequent conference calls, and face-to-face semiannual meetings. An evaluation of the Collaborative's activities showed that programs demonstrated increased uptake of curricular components and an increase in advocacy activities. The themes extracted from semistructured interviews of lead faculty at each program revealed that the Collaborative (1) reduced faculty isolation, increased motivation, and strengthened faculty academic development, (2) enhanced identification of curricular areas of weakness and provided curricular development from new resources, (3) helped to address barriers of limited resident time and program resources, and (4) sustained the Collaborative's impact even after formal funding of the program had ceased through curricular enhancement, the need for further resources, and a shared desire to expand the collaborative network.

Predicting Patient Advocacy Engagement: A Multiple Regression Analysis Using Data From Health Professionals in Acute-Care Hospitals

“…Literature suggests that projects to train professionals in advocacy exist, but have yet to be subjected to rigorous evaluation (Bandiera, 2003;Chamberlain et al, 2013;Klein & Vaughn, 2010;Seal, 2007;Wright et al, 2005). We believe that findings from the current study can facilitate the development of patient advocacy training programs in nursing, social work, and medical schools and departments so that their graduates are already prepared to engage in patient advocacy when they enter their professional settings.…”

Advocacy in community-based service learning: perspectives of community partner organizations

“… 7 CBSL aims to provide mutual benefits and learning for both students and community partners, including the students’ development of advocacy skills. 8 - 12 Although there is a body of literature that describes the impact of service-learning on medical students, there is a paucity of literature on the perspectives of participating community partners. A review of multiple service-learning programs found that the perspectives of community organizations were often excluded.…”

Health advocacy among resident physicians

“…With the increasingly acknowledged importance of teaching health advocacy, researchers in medical education have started to examine advocacy attitudes, competencies, and participation in resident physicians (Verma et al, 2005;Leveridge et al, 2007;Stafford et al, 2010;Bachofer et al, 2011;Chamberlain et al, 2013;Long et al, 2014;Shepard et al, 2015;DeCesare and Jackson, 2016). However, there is, to our knowledge, no published data to date examining these attributes in psychiatric residents.…”