Advocacy Curricula in Graduate Medical Education: an Updated Systematic Review from 2017 to 2022

Advocacy is an integral component of a physician's professional responsibilities, yet efforts to teach advocacy skills in a systematic and comprehensive manner have been inconsistent and challenging. There is currently no consensus on the tools and content that should be included in advocacy curricula for graduate medical trainees.

To conduct a systematic review of recently published GME advocacy curricula and delineate foundational concepts and topics in advocacy education that are pertinent to trainees across specialties and career paths.

We conducted an updated systematic review based off Howell et al. (J Gen Intern Med 34(11):2592-2601, 2019) to identify articles published between September 2017 and March 2022 that described GME advocacy curricula developed in the USA and Canada. Searches of grey literature were used to find citations potentially missed by the search strategy. Articles were independently reviewed by two authors to identify those meeting our inclusion and exclusion criteria; a third author resolved discrepancies. Three reviewers used a web-based interface to extract curricular details from the final selection of articles. Two reviewers conducted a detailed analysis of recurring themes in curricular design and implementation.

Of 867 articles reviewed, 26 articles, describing 31 unique curricula, met inclusion and exclusion criteria. The majority (84%) represented Internal Medicine, Family Medicine, Pediatrics, and Psychiatry programs. The most common learning methods included experiential learning, didactics, and project-based work. Most covered community partnerships (58%) and legislative advocacy (58%) as advocacy tools and social determinants of health (58%) as an educational topic. Evaluation results were inconsistently reported. Analysis of recurring themes showed that advocacy curricula benefit from an overarching culture supportive of advocacy education and should ideally be learner-centric, educator-friendly, and action-oriented.

Combining core features of advocacy curricula identified in prior publications with our findings, we propose an integrative framework to guide design and implementation of advocacy curricula for GME trainees. Additional research is needed to build expert consensus and ultimately develop model curricula for disseminated use.