Lessons Learned from the Public Health Advocacy Fellowship 2021-22 Cohort

TCMS recently celebrated the conclusion of the 2021-22 Dr. Pete Dehnel Public Health Advocacy Fellowship by gathering students together and reflecting on lessons, skills, and takeaways they learned throughout the Fellowship. We were thrilled to wrap up a successful fourth year of the Public Health Advocacy Fellowship with a great group of future physicians. Read their reflections below.

Thank you to our wonderful physician mentors who gave of their time, energy, and perspectives this year as well as the Physicians Foundation for their generous support of this innovative program. If you are a physician interested in serving as a mentor for a future cohort member or are a student who would like to be part of a future cohort, please indicate your interest here.

Coming into medical school, I had a reluctance and fear to engage in advocacy and community engagement work because I believed that my voice was not needed and that any ideas I had most certainly must’ve already been thought about and worked on by someone wiser or with more experience than me. The TCMS Public Health Advocacy Fellowship completely changed that. Thanks to the Fellowship, I learned that, as future physicians, our voices, ideas, and drive to stand up and bring people together around things that matter to the health of our communities is not only acceptable… it’s necessary, and it’s celebrated by TCMS.

2021-22 cohort member