CHANGE MINDS
BUILD SKILLS
CREATE IMPACT
THEORY OF CHANGE
Shift medical school culture to see patient
+ justice-oriented
political advocacy as a professional responsibility
Equip medical students with the skillset to impact
political + policy action
Connect medical students to pathways for serving
as lifelong agents
of political + structural change
ACTIONS
Our chapters enact programming in the following areas to translate our Theory of Change into action.
RAISING
AWARENESS
Serving patients through political advocacy is not
the norm for doctors.
Through engaging social media campaigns, compelling infographics, and our podcast, Rx: Change, fDIP is making the case for why political advocacy is a professional responsibility and sharing a blueprint for what it looks like in a language our fellow future doctors understand.
CULTIVATING POLICY +
POLITICAL
LITERACY
In medical school, we spend a lot of time learning about which pills to prescribe for our patients, but not about the bills and laws that impact their health the most.
Through patient-centric policy forums, fDIP chapters educate future doctors on how policies decided in legislative chambers across the country affect patients in our clinics. Through townhalls with elected officials and candid conversations, fDIP is pulling back the curtain on the political processes that determine who gets to be in the room, what policy ideas get to become laws, and if the system stays the same or gets better.
BUILDING AN ADVOCACY TOOLKIT
As future doctors, we are trained to put the patient first. fDIP chapters build on this premise to train future doctors to effect political change that ensures our politics and policymaking prioritize patients, not profit or partisan interests.
Through grassroots organizing workshops and opportunities, fDIP chapters are equipping future doctors with an array of lifelong tools that empower them to leverage their unique voices to make change happen – whether that involves writing op-eds, providing expert testimony, lobbying legislators, getting candidates elected, or one day running for office themselves.
HARNESSING COLLECTIVE POWER
Challenging the status quo and effecting political change that centers patients and communities requires combining resources and wielding our power as a collective.
fDIP chapters are connecting medical students to leading physician advocates and policymakers to build a national network of doctors and future doctors who are committed to supporting each other in this cause throughout their careers.