title: Laying the foundation: teaching policy and advocacy to medical trainees.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  A novel and comprehensive two-year health policy curriculum was developed and implemented for family medicine residents at two University of Toronto-affiliated teaching sites.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the impact of the curriculum on residents' knowledge of health policy issues, and its usefulness to their learning.
  
  
  METHODS
  The evaluation included a pre-post delivery assessment of residents' content-based knowledge of issues in the Canadian healthcare system. Residents were also asked to evaluate the content, process and usefulness of the health policy curriculum.
  
  
  RESULTS
  At the end, more than two-thirds of residents had a better understanding of the Canadian healthcare system. The overall pre-post scores showed that residents retained content-based facts in some detail. However, more importantly, residents' positive evaluations of the curriculum indicated they were engaged, enthusiastic and recognized its importance for their learning.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Despite residents' positive evaluations, questions remain as to how best to assess the success of health policy curricula. Moving beyond the popular pre-post test, less traditional approaches might complement standard program evaluation methods in future. As educators increasingly develop curricula aimed at non-biomedical expertise, we must consider how we can most meaningfully evaluate long-term impact on graduates' approach to clinical practice and their engagement in health system advocacy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Toronto, USA. docdaniellemartin@gmail.com
authors.forename: Danielle
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Martin
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hum
authors.forename: Margaret
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Han
authors.forename: Cynthia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Whitehead
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002170:Canada; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003479:Curriculum; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration*; D005260:Female; D006291:Health Policy; D006801:Humans; D007396:Internship and Residency / Q000458:organization & administration*; D019359:Knowledge; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000523:psychology*