Development and Evaluation of an Advocacy Curriculum for Pediatric Emergency Medicine Fellows

Advocacy is a key skill for pediatric emergency medicine (PEM) physicians; however, advocacy education is not a PEM fellowship program requirement, and literature describing the design, implementation, or evaluation of PEM advocacy curricula have not been published. We aimed to develop, implement, and evaluate a curriculum to teach core advocacy concepts to PEM fellows that builds on advocacy training in residency. An advocacy curriculum for PEM fellows, informed by a needs assessment, was implemented at an urban academic children’s hospital during the 2021 to 2022 academic year. Eight fellows participated in the curriculum, which consisted of didactic and work group sessions integrated into the fellows’ educational conference. PEM fellows were surveyed before and after 1 year of curriculum participation to assess advocacy attitudes, knowledge, skills, and participation in advocacy activities. After the curriculum, most fellows agreed or strongly agreed they had the skills to conduct specific advocacy activities, and fellows reported participating in a range of advocacy activities including use of social media for advocacy, legislative advocacy, and speaking with community partners. Fellows completed mentored longitudinal advocacy projects focused on firearm injury prevention, increasing underrepresented minority student exposure to health careers, and understanding caregiver hesitancies regarding the COVID-19 vaccine. This curriculum may serve as a model for integration of advocacy education into PEM and other pediatric subspecialty fellowships.