title: Prospective analysis of a novel orthopedic residency advocacy education program.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Future physician leaders must be able to critically assess health care policy and patient advocacy issues. Currently, no nationally accepted, standardized curriculum to provide advocacy education during orthopedic residency training exists. We therefore developed an "Advocacy" curriculum for our orthopedic residents designed to direct particular attention to patient advocacy, specialty advocacy, and healthcare policy.
  
  
  METHODS
  Residents were given pre- and post-curriculum questionnaires to gauge their perception of the importance, strengths, and weaknesses of this curriculum. A paired t-test was used to compare pre- and post-curriculum responses.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Twenty-one of 24 orthopedic residents completed the pre-curriculum and post-curriculum questionnaire regarding the importance of advocacy education (87.5% response rate). Overall, 85.7% (18/21) of responders ranked the curriculum on orthopedic advocacy as good or excellent. Prior to the advocacy curriculum, 33.3% (7/21) of residents felt that learning about orthopedic advocacy was important to their education, while following the curriculum 100% (21/21) felt so (p<0.05). The percentage of residents who considered health policy to be important increased from 71.4% (15/21) to 95.2% (20/21) following the curriculum(p<0.05). Following the advocacy curriculum, 90.5% (19/21) of responders would be interested in getting involved in orthopedic advocacy.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This curriculum significantly increased residents' belief in the importance of advocacy issues. Following the curriculum, 100% of responding residents considered orthopedic advocacy education as important. An advocacy curriculum may serve as an integral preparatory educational core component to residency training.
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and Rhode Island Hospital.
authors.forename: Alan H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Daniels
authors.affiliation: Emory University, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery. Atlanta, Georgia.
authors.forename: Jason T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Bariteau
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and Rhode Island Hospital.
authors.forename: Zachary
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Grabel
authors.affiliation: Harvard University, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Boston, Massachusetts.
authors.forename: Christopher W
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: DiGiovanni
mesh_terms: D003479:Curriculum; D004503:Education, Medical, Graduate / Q000592:standards*; D006291:Health Policy; D006801:Humans; D007396:Internship and Residency; D009985:Orthopedics / Q000193:education*; D015397:Program Evaluation; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012237:Rhode Island; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: Patient advocacy; advocacy curriculum; health policy; orthopedic surgery; resident education