Curricular advances to develop medical students' knowledge, skills, and attitudes in health advocacy

The American Medical Association's Declaration of Professional Responsibility is an important covenant obligating present-day physicians to transcend personal beliefs and affiliations to advocate for changes that alleviate suffering and promote human health. Despite this recognition of advocacy as a pillar of physician duty, advocacy training in undergraduate medical education remains variable across institutions, elective in nature, and often insufficient in developing trainees' professional identities and competence as health advocates.

Educators at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine designed and delivered a novel half-day session required for all first-year medical students to nurture their professional identities as health advocates and empower them with knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSA) needed to give voice to issues impacting the patients and communities they serve. Students attended a shared didactic followed by two focused workshops. The session was conducted annually from 2023-2025. Pre- and post-session data was collected after each iteration to evaluate changes in KSA.

A total of 509 first-year medical students participated in the session from 2023-2025 with 477 (94%) partaking in the session synchronously. All 509 participants (100%) completed at least one survey, and 361 (71%) completed both pre- and post-surveys. Pooled data showed that participation led to statistically significant improvement on a 7-point Likert scale at similar rates in all three cohorts in each of the measured domains: knowledge (Δ1.45, p < 0.001), skills (Δ1.37, p < 0.001), and attitudes (Δ0.44, p < 0.001).

A required half-day advocacy session supported trainees in developing their professional identities and acquiring foundational KSA needed to fulfill their roles as health advocates. Implementing this session across institutions can broaden its impact. Longitudinal data collection can clarify its long-term influence on physician engagement in advocacy and on health outcomes of patients and communities.