Interdisciplinary Solidarity: Advancing Medical Student Education in Healthcare Advocacy

It is increasingly important to create longitudinal advocacy education opportunities starting as early as medical school to train physicians capable of handling the complexities of the social determinants of health that they will encounter in their communities. This is a brief overview of the journey of medical students in developing an interdisciplinary, longitudinal advocacy curriculum at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine (UNM SOM).

The Healthcare Advocacy Initiative of New Mexico (HAINM) has disseminated information on the significance and structure of health policy in New Mexico through various educational opportunities by communicating with state representatives, community advocates, law students, professors, and professional advocacy organizations. To analyze the significance of these experiences, a survey was conducted at the capstone event.

Pre- and post-test survey responses from the interprofessional "Med/Law/Psych Day 2025" event were analyzed using Wilcoxon signed-rank tests. Two events were found to be statistically significant (developing a plan to change policy related to healthcare issues and teaching other peers advocacy skills) with P < .05 and .04, respectively. Differences in survey data collected before and after the interprofessional advocacy event demonstrate that a majority of respondents reported a mild to moderate increase in proficiency after attending the event.

HAINM has become a hub for a continuous medical advocacy curriculum that is available to medical students through all 4 years of training. This provides interested students with a solid foundation, a skill set, and a network to pursue interprofessional advocacy work successfully.