One of the things they didn’t teach in medical school is advocacy. There are different meanings for advocacy – in this case I refer to the broader meaning of advocating for patients and communities to achieve an end to their benefit. An example might be supporting the funding of a new drug or campaigning for increased resources for a hospital.

Simplistically advocacy can just be about being vocal but there can be problems with this approach.

To be an advocate it is important to be able to see all points of view so as being able to bring a cogent argument to the table. Often times advocates are dealing with political situations and positions and invariably these become polarised – it is important to diffuse this polarisation to get the party with whom one is lobbying to also be able to see the arguments in favour of your position. Advocates need to be prepared to compromise to achieve small but important wins rather than overnight revolution.

Advocates need to be careful about their motivations for lobbying. For example it is not uncommon for drug companies to ask doctors to provide support for a new treatment. If this happens there needs to be transparency about the reasons for lobbying and full disclosure of any conflicts of interest.

Similarly advocates need to be careful that their lobbying is not seen as some form of whistle-blowing – this is because some employment contracts prohibit this activity. In this case being part of a community of advocates is important. There is strength in numbers.

There are many tools for advocacy – the main one is conversation and the new medium for conversation is social media. Mastery of social media and branding the advocacy message is a new skill for the medical graduate advocate.