Social Medicine and Research-Based Advocacy

This course seeks to develop research based health advocacy skills in residents training in the Cambridge Health Alliance Internal Medicine Residency Program. Our curriculum is founded in the belief that in order to properly care for our patients, physicians have a responsibility to understand the social, economic, and political context of health. The curriculum is comprised of didactics, workshops, journal clubs, social medicine rounds, field trips, and a yearlong group research based health advocacy project.

The curriculum is housed within the ambulatory curriculum of the residency program. Each year, one-third of the residents spend two of their 2 week ambulatory blocks doing health advocacy training. There are also advocacy sessions dispersed throughout the year during Thursday morning ambulatory didactics. Residents get more than 100 hours of advocacy training.

CHA Interprofessional Health Equity & Advocacy Course

The CHEEA Interprofessional course on health equity and advocacy is a new, innovative curriculum that is offered to trainees at CHA training programs including: psychiatry, psychology, family medicine, internal medicine, social work, podiatry, dentistry, & pharmacy.

The curriculum covers a wide range of topics such as access to healthcare, racism and health, immigration, food security, housing and climate change. There is a competitive application process for approximately 8-12 course participants a year.

Trainees in any CHA training program (pending training program approval) are welcome to apply. Course expectations include one 2-hour session per month on Fridays from 1pm-3pm on the CHA campus and participants are expected to attend all sessions.

Community Organizing Training for Health Professionals

This day-long training will provide local health professionals with the opportunity to participate in a community organizing training to support their work as clinician-advocates.

Health Equity Education Fellowship

During the one year fellowship, the fellow will develop health equity curricula, teach clinicians in inter-professional training program settings at CHA, and teach health equity and policy to Harvard medical students. The fellowship will provide the fellow with mentored training and feedback in teaching in the classroom, curriculum development and evaluation.

Recent graduates of clinical training programs who wish to pursue careers as scholarly clinician educators focused on reducing health inequities are welcome to apply.