Advocacy and Community Engagement

Our residents are passionate about advocacy, equity, and community engagement, and have access to both curricular and extracurricular opportunities to pursue these interests.

Curricular Opportunities

• Advocacy Rotation: A required rotation for all Med-Peds residents that includes education on a broad spectrum of advocacy issues and tactics, as well as opportunities to visit community sites including food banks, community kitchens, community centers, and advocacy organizations.

• Advanced Advocacy Elective: An elective rotation that helps residents partner with a community organization on an advocacy project. Partners in the past have included Mom’s Demand Action, Refugee Connect, and Blue Manatee Bookstore, among others. Many residents have carried their projects forward beyond this rotation.

• Immigrant and Refugee Health Elective: An elective rotation structured similarly to the advocacy rotations which provide didactics for residents that cover a broad range of refugee and immigrant health topics while also partnering with a community organization to develop and advocacy/service project to serve the immigrant community. Partners in the past have included Refugee Connect and Su Casa. This elective is currently led by former MP residents!

Advocacy Pathway at CCHMC: Provides longitudinal education on advocacy strategies at the institutional and governmental levels and learn to put these strategies into action in the community. Residents engage with their community, legislators, and other stakeholders

MedCARES Pathway at UC: Provides a longitudinal opportunity for engagement in DEI and community service work both within the walls of the hospital and in the community. Residents provide DEI focus noon conferences, support mentees at earlier stages in medical training, and develop longitudinal projects with community organizations

Institute on Poverty, Justice, and Health: A month-long medicine elective rotation that explores social and systemic determinants of health and helps residents become oriented to the landscape of community resources in Cincinnati.

Resident Projects and Committees

LGBTQ Care Committee: A joint faculty and resident effort through the Hoxworth Med-Peds Clinic to improve care for and inclusivity of LGBTQ patients. Projects have included pronoun badges for providers and patients, increasing inclusivity of clinic art and children’s books, EH MR updates to use preferred names on paperwork, and streamlining pathways for pediatric to adult transitions of care for LGBTQ patients.

Literacy Committee: A faculty/resident effort through Hoxworth Med-Peds to advocate for improve literacy. Projects include ongoing partnerships with Imagination Library, Reach Out and Read, and local Cincinnati organization Queen City Book Bank to provide books and literacy resources to pediatric patients from birth through their teenager years.

Asylum Seeker Exams: Having a medical exam that supports a person’s case of asylum dramatically increases the chances that asylum will be granted. With a faculty member from family medicine, multiple MP residents have become trained to perform exams for asylum seekers.

Refugee Connect Partnership: A local Cincinnati organization that provides resources for resettled refugees in Cincinnati including access to community navigators, job and housing support, health education, etc. Med-Peds and Pediatrics residents have partnered with the organization for multiple years to develop a series of easily shared, translated health education videos focused community-request topics.

UpSpring Partnership: A community organization that supports families experiencing homelessness in Cincinnati through provision of resources as well as a summer camp for children. MP and pediatrics residents started a community-based initiative in partnership with UpSpring to address health-related needs for children experiencing homelessness through a mobile clinic that provided health screenings, vaccines, and health education

Voter Registration Committee: A committee of Med-Peds residents and faculty continue to work on efforts to promote voter registration and civic engagement for our patients and colleagues.

Complex Care Curriculum Development: Led by a Med-Peds resident, this project has focused on developing medical education curricula around caring for patients with medical complexity to improve the patient experience. This curriculum includes academic half-day sessions, simulation education on technology of complex patients (e.g. G-tubes, tracheostomies, etc.), and noon report sessions.

Fundraisers, Walks, Community Events: Med-Peds residents and faculty have participated together in multiple annual fundraisers, including the Down Syndrome Buddy Walk and the Hunger Walk. Med-Peds residents and faculty have helped organized participation in Cincinnati Pride, including walking in the parade and hosting a booth for UC Health

Legislative Advocacy: Through lobby days that are hosted through CCHMC and UC, many Med-Peds residents have participated in the opportunity to meet with legislators on important bills and topics. Some Med-Peds residents have also independently engaged with legislators and provide written and oral testimony on topics of interest

Op Eds and Letters to the Editor: Med-Peds resident and faculty have mentorship available to support them in writing OpEds and Letters to the Editor to submit for publication.