Resident Advocacy

Our residents have the opportunity to develop a project with the goal of improving child health. Projects may involve, but are not limited to:

• Partnerships with community stakeholders.
• Resident continuity clinics.
• Quality improvement projects.
• Research or data collection.
• Volunteer time.
• Legislative efforts.

Brainstorming and community outreach begins in CPAAX I or intern year, and research or implementation continues throughout residency. See below for examples of past residents’ advocacy projects.

• Dr. Julia Clemens’s Parenting Newborns: Building Bonds, Breaking Stigma. The goals of this project were to 1) improve parenting and newborn care skills of women participating in programs at ARC House, and 2) foster positive relationships between these women and pediatric residents. Additionally, Clemens provided participants with positive associations with the healthcare field to decrease hesitancy to access care and provide pediatric residents with positive exposure to parents with substance use disorder to decrease biases. Clemens received a Community Access to Child Health (CATCH) grant for her project.
• Dr. Matthew Lammers’s guidelines for orienting newly-arrived immigrant patients to the clinic. In this project, Lammers worked with physicians at this continuity clinic site, Access Community Health Center to develop the guidelines. They also created additional screening recommendations for patients based on age and specific risk factors, including country of origin.
• Dr. Danielle Rodgers’s and Dr. Sam Williams Al-Kharusy’s project on food insecurity. For this project, the residents planned a week-long educational focus on food insecurity, including faculty Q&A and case examples, a resident-led Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) challenge, and discussions with the Women, Infants, and Children Program, SNAP, and food pantry representatives in Madison. Their abstract was also accepted to the 2023 Pediatrics Academic Societies Meeting!

The vision for the Committee for Advocacy and Resident Education (CARE) is for all pediatric trainees to be effective advocates for children. The committee is a resident-led advocacy group that is open to all pediatric residents. It provides extra opportunities to learn about advocacy and participate in additional training and advocacy work. The group meets outside of work-hours and meetings are hosted by a resident or faculty member. Guest faculty members are invited to meetings to share how they have incorporated advocacy in their respective careers, created partnerships, and utilized various forms of advocacy. Our faculty mentors are Drs. Megan Yanny and Natalie Tedford.

In conjunction with CARE, each year, a lead resident for advocacy is elected. This representative is responsible for distributing opportunities for advocacy involvement, coordinating resident involvement in Advocacy Day, liaising residents with faculty and departmental advocacy efforts, and representing the program at state and national AAP meetings.

Each year, Wisconsin physicians, residents, and medical students meet at the Wisconsin State Capitol for Doctor Day. Here, they have the opportunity to learn about the legislative process and engage with legislators.

Our residents participate in local initiatives through the WIAAP and national initiatives through the AAP. Our residency program has an AAP National Program Delegate who educates our residents on national child health campaigns, advocacy projects in other programs, and local efforts.

Morning Report is a resident-driven conference that focuses on the problem-oriented approach to both inpatient and outpatient cases of interest. Chief residents facilitate discussion about differential diagnoses, management, and plan with support from faculty in attendance

Our program hosts Morning Reports two times each week, with quarterly Morning Reports focusing on an advocacy-related topic.

Advocacy Morning Report Examples

• Lauren Fetsko, DO – Special populations (disability, complex care); slide deck
• Britt Allen, MD – Health care for different groups
• Megan Yanny, MD – Office space for different groups
• Mandy Jackson, MD, MPH & Laura Houser, MD – Immigrant health, access to resources; slide deck
• James Bigham, MD, MPH – Firearm injury prevention; slide deck

Pediatric Education and Active Resident Learning (PEARL) is a weekly, academic half-day conference. It is an interactive, case-based educational session led by our dedicated pediatric faculty.

Each year, one PEARL session is dedicated to exploring a relevant area of advocacy.

Advocacy PEARL Examples

In December 2024, the Department of Pediatrics hosted a day-long, department-wide advocacy workshop, Speak Up For Children. Integrated into this workshop was the annual half-day advocacy PEARL. Here, residents participated in the keynote address, “What’s New in Washington: Where We Are Now, and a Look Ahead.” They were then invited to explore advocacy in the realms of social media, written advocacy, and crafting compelling advocacy stories. Dr. Alex Wolf (PGY-3) co-presented one of the breakout sessions with Dr. Vivek Balasubramaniam, “I Can Only Scream so Loud! How Can I Make a Bigger Impact? Putting Pen to Paper, the Written Word as Advocacy” (pictured on left). The workshop ended with a panel of departmental faculty members who shared how they have used various forms of advocacy to promote the health of children.