Physician Advocacy

Physician advocacy extends beyond the provision of good clinical care and advocacy on behalf of individual patients to include collaborations with people and organizations that combat interpersonal, structural, and systematic inequities and abuses in our society. Advocacy is the bridge that links patient care with efforts to address social determinants of health, institutionalized prejudices, and structural dislocations faced by patients and communities. The prestige and credibility that physicians command means that they are especially qualified to advocate for social change on behalf of patients and populations alike.

The Division of Social Medicine and Professionalism seeks to make advocacy on behalf of populations a core professional value for physicians by developing a cadre of advocates with expertise in achieving policy change at the local, state, and national level.