Advocacy in Pediatric Academia: Charting a Path Forward
Abby L. Nerlinger, MD, MPH, Debra L. Best, MD, Anita N. Shah, DO, MPH
The Duke School of Medicine’s efforts to embrace a contemporary definition of promotable scholarship were featured in a recent review article “Advocacy in Pediatric Academia: Charting a Path Forward,” co-authored by Dr. Debra Best, Associate Professor of Pediatrics. Advocacy scholarship is defined as scholarly activity that promotes the social, economic, educational, and political changes that ameliorate threats to human health and advance the well-being of people.
Nerlinger et al. wrote that “Details surrounding how advocacy fits into current academic medical institutional frameworks are an emerging area of paradigm shift that reorients institutional values around the community. We argue that advocacy can be held to the same rigorous documentation and evaluation standards as traditional scholarship through the use of an Advocacy Portfolio (AP) during the academic promotion process.” Duke's new Advocacy Scholarship Framework was presented as one example of how to do this.
The Duke SoM Advocacy Scholarship Framework is one of four new frameworks that seek to bring greater clarity to how to measure the impact of numerous expressions of scholarship. Other frameworks include digital scholarship; justice, equity, diversity, antiracism, and inclusion (JEDAI); and team science.
Congratulations to Dr. Best on her work to develop and promote the advocacy framework!