Hi everybody, my name's Amber. I'm a fourth year medical student at Lincoln Memorial University, DuBois College of Osteopathic Medicine at the Harrogate campus. And if you're watching this, it's post-match day. So congrats to all fourth years who have matched and hopefully I've matched. We're going to be talking to you a little bit today about advocacy in medicine, transitioning to residency and beyond. I'll let Syed introduce himself. Hey everyone, my name is Syed. I'm currently serving as the national director to Omega Beta Iota. Congratulations on from my side as well. Wherever you might be in a different time and space, we're glad that you're joining us here today. And let's get to learn a bit more about how we can transition beyond medical school and how you can use your advocacy skills from there. A little later in the presentation, a resident, Dr. Brie Howerton, will be joining us. So she's going to hop on in a little bit and take it from there. So we have no relevant disclosures to give to you guys today. Unfortunately, if anyone wants to sponsor us though, give us a call. So we put together some objectives for this presentation. So first, we want to understand the integration of advocacy into residency applications by effectively incorporating advocacy work into the various sections of residency applications while highlighting these unique contributions to health care. Explore techniques for discussing advocacy experiences during residency and how they can be used in medicine. And finally, we're going to talk about how you can use advocacy work during residency interviews, including how to align your advocacy goals with the mission and values of your prospective programs. Learn how advocacy work can transition from medical school into residency with practical examples and guidance from current residents who's maintained their involvement. Recognize the value of advocacy in shaping professional identity and how to present it as a career asset to potential life strategies and lessons to implement these techniques in your own application and career planning process. Syed and I have just come out of the process this year. We're both fourth years. We both have matched. And we are very new, very into advocacy over our medical school time. And we both incorporated so much of advocacy into our residency application. And I feel like it really set us both apart in the match process because it's not every day that you see a medical student who is so passionate and so involved in health care policy and advocacy. And we really want to share that passion and the things that we've learned and our experiences, our mistakes, et cetera, with you so you can have an easy, easier time making your application this year. So then moving on to why we're here in the first place, a lot of us were in different parts of our medical school career. We have first years all the way to fourth years. Some of some of us are just starting to get into the next application cycle. Some of us are excited to start off. And some of us are just brand new into becoming into medical school. But we're all sitting here today talking about why why is it important in terms of becoming an advocate? And how can you utilize those skills? And the very first thing you really got to start off with is being committed to that pathway from the beginning. A lot of people, I think, as we've entered through medical school, we always thought about like, these are the checkboxes I need to check off on. And that's what's going to get me into a medical school. And that's what's going to help me become a doctor. But once you're in medical school, a lot of these things are to your own tailoring and to how you how and how you want to become the doctor that you want to be. And so advocacy is not going to be for everyone. Some of us even after this, like session here today might be thinking, this may not be for me, there might be a different scope of medicine. But the biggest thing to take out from yourself and from just what we're talking about here today is to ensure that you are comfortable with what you're doing. And if this is something that you want to do, then go ahead and explore that path. And this goes into all realms of medicine, when you go in and explore those path in terms of the passions that you want to go and develop in, that is where your most success comes out to be. And that's where you're able to become comfortable with who you are and being able to present yourself to the type of person that you want to be. So we're going to start with some practical advice for those of you who are just beginning your medical school career. So one thing I did, and I did this at the end of my OMS one year, kind of wish I had maybe done it during my like winter break. But nonetheless, it's good to know is that I sat down and I made a very detailed CV of everything I had done so far in first year, and set it up as a template so that way I could keep adding to it. So a lot of times your school, if you have like a career services department, they'll offer a CV. I know a lot of the SOMA leadership conferences, they have CV workshops, a lot of other conferences you may go to that have student tracks. This is a very popular and needed workshop that they do. So feel free to use one of their templates or can even get on Google and type in medical school CV template and use whichever one works for you. There's no one size fits all. I say to keep track of everything, even if you think it's small. And one thing that I did, I have a master CV. So it has everything I've done with detailed bullet points like I showed you here. So I have that and then if I need to change the format, I just make a copy of it and delete out, edit what I need to. It is very, very helpful to have this on hand for any leadership positions and opportunities, including if you're interested in applying to Omega Beta Iota one day, quick plug there. But it's so useful to have on hand. You can quickly pull it out and make a few small, minor edits. Sometimes you don't even need to do that and submit it for whatever application you have. You're also going to need it third year for your audition applications. Many of them request a full CV. And then when you get to ERAS, let me tell you, you're tired, burnt out forth yourself is going to think your your current self wholeheartedly for having everything where you can pretty much copy and paste it for your experiences and maybe even copy, paste and reword a little bit for things like your personal statement and other portions. It is such a time saver and just it's wonderful to have now. So adding on to that, one of the other things that we've always thought about, especially with this, like having that master CV is being able to utilize that in a flexible manner to reach out and apply to programs that are to like that are specifically tailored to specific niches. And by that, I'm thinking, like, if we have all of your experiences written down in one place, you can like pick and create your own mini resume from that so that it's tailored to that specific position you're applying to. And it helps to create a stronger foundation to let anyone who's reading your resume know that this person has that constant track record. It's not them just picking it like picking everything that was all along their way. And it really helps to like hone down on very specific experiences, but also helps to broaden it when that time comes to help expand to it. So moving on to OMS3, keep up with your CV. I try to update it at least once a month, even if I don't have a lot of updates, even if I haven't had a new presentation. I try to make a point to lay eyes on it once a month. You never know when you're going to find a typo. You never know when you're going to realize you left something out or you just want to kind of edit it some. That's something to set aside. And then start writing notes about your advocacy experiences to help craft your application. I had just a document going that had some of my different like advocacy experiences, state advocacy days, DO days, with some important things that I did. So for example, one of the things I talked about a lot in my interviews was my passion for graduate medical education expansion and how I had advocated for that with the AOA and with some other organizations. And I was able to name some specific bills and specific congressional representatives I had worked with on that. So just keeping those few notes, so that way when time comes for your application, your personal statement, your interviews, you have that. Another thing is to keep your career goals and advocacy in mind when looking at residencies. So a couple of the residencies that ended up being higher up on my match list were ones that I knew already had residents very involved in some of the advocacy initiatives I was interested in. I knew the program directors were interested. Some of those were program directors I had actually met through advocacy initiatives. So knowing that I would have that support going into residency to continue my advocacy work, I would have the support of the program administrator. I would have the support of fellow students was really important to me. Zaya, would you like to speak with your experience a little bit more on that? Yeah. So in terms of for me, it was more along like trying to utilize what I have done so far up until medical school, and what was I able to appreciate and work more towards that. And I think starting from that standpoint, I was able to create and I guess this goes more on to the fourth point here today about networking and utilizing what you have accomplished so far to build your own platform to see where do you fit best within the osteopathic community and beyond and even in your in within your advocacy community as well. For me, it was a lot about like improving patient discharge outcomes about like ensuring equitable access. And like once you start to have those conversations with yourself, you were able to have a more solidified conversation as I was able to talk with different programs, you would you would know relatively quickly like these are the priorities with within a certain residency program, and these aren't the priorities for a different one. And while some programs indicate that they do have that strong, tailored approach to advocacy, it might not be the advocacy approach that you want that you wanted to see. And that really helps to like fine tune where you want to see that program on your rank list personally. And just to see like how much of how much of your thoughts are actually aligning with certain programs. But expanding on from that standpoint, this is something it becomes like a bilateral conversation. I'm starting from third year, for me personally, starting my LinkedIn account and trying to like work up from that. It helped me a to organize myself, especially when it came to ERS, where I was able to have those little blurbs ready to copy paste basically, but then also it started to like poke heads within different communities on LinkedIn with who were other physicians within similar niches. And I was able to reach out to them, they were able to reach out with me. And that really opened a lot of opportunities from that standpoint, and really helped me to drive like, which way do I see myself practicing as an attending in the future? And for OMS force, congrats, we made it we match, I hope you got the most perfect program for you. And I hope you have the best time starting residency. I'll put in the chat where I match because we are recording this before match day. So yeah, one of the biggest things, of course, we haven't put any information for fourth years. And that's the biggest part of where it comes down to is as much as of a big of an advocate, you become really have to make sure that you're a big advocate for yourself and taking care of yourself too. So at this point, for an OMS for we get it, it's senioritis, you're chilling, we're trying to end and medical school strong, and we're just looking forward to what residency has to come. But yes, congratulations to everyone. If you've matched, go ahead and post in the comments where you've matched what specialty, and I'm sure we'll be celebrating real soon. So moving back to the application process, what parts of ERAS can include advocacy work? It's actually a lot more of it than I thought. Initially, when I logged in, I thought it was just going to be my personal statement, experiences, and professional memberships. But as I got more in the process, I realized it was so much more with that. So I have listed here all the places that we had our advocacy work integrated into our application. So personal statement is a big one, honors and awards. So if you've received any honors or awards related to advocacy work, experiences, of course, publications is a big portion we'll get to later. Professional memberships, even certifications and licensure, and letters of recommendation. So moving on, starting with personal statements, the biggest question comes down to is once you're in medical school, there's there's a very different selling point in terms of when you're trying to convince residency programs to rank you. And it becomes a lot on vision of the residency program and your vision yourself. And as you start to create these personal statements, you really start to question what do you want to accomplish? A lot of students once once they get into medical school, they think that they're at the peak of the mountain that they they've done it, and that's all that needs to be done. But what as as you go through up until four years, you realize that you're you're really like relatively at a bottom of a very big mountain. And there's a lot more things you want to accomplish. And there's a lot of different paths that you can take. And so as you craft your personal statement, a lot of these advocacy stories that you start to understand and have, you can really start to tailor it just within your personal statement itself. But then it also allows you to reflect as a person like, is this something that I really appreciate it? Is this something I want to continue lifelong? Or is this something that I like is for a short time as well. And it really helps to help help set not only like your advocacy efforts, but what, where, where do you see yourself within that next 10 years, you always get asked that question during residency, where do you see yourself, a lot of it becomes that you want to be at that bedside, or you want to help, like, bring up like working with your diverse populations and trying to make sure that everyone is benefiting from from the care that you're providing. So with that personal statement, with all your tool belts of tools under your tool belt with advocacy, it really comes down to question of what peaks do you want to conquer? And how can you create utilize all of your experiences to come together to create that document to help under let residency programs understand that you really mean what you're putting down. So one of the peaks I've wanted to conquer in my career, and one of the peaks that inspired me, that inspired my climb into medicine, I guess, was the lack of access to healthcare in general. And so that was something I focused on my personal statement. This is probably my third or fourth paragraph. Most of my personal statement was focused around my history with the field of neurology and how passionate I was about that field. But I wanted to tie in my policy and advocacy work. So this is an excerpt from mine, I'm not going to read it, you can pause or come back to it and read it if you want to. But on the next slide, I have some things highlighted that I do want to really show. So I made sure to show why I was involved in policy and advocacy. And so I said that it was driven by my deep seated belief in the importance of equitable access to care and service to others. Those are two values that I hold dear to myself. And I wanted to make sure that I communicated to residency programs. Because when I was thinking of my personal statement, I was thinking, why do I actually do advocacy and policy work? Like, why am I out there doing this? Is it for fun? No, it's because I have a driving force. And what is that driving force? And then I brought in some specific examples of things that I had done that I knew would be relevant to a lot of the programs. So rural healthcare access, neurology is not something that you can get in a rural area. It's not something you can even get in some urban areas at the moment, there's an extreme dire need there. And then graduate medical education training expansion, there's a huge shortage of neurologists. There's also a shortage of neurology residencies that many are opening now and they're trying to really expand the field. But that is something that I knew was relevant to the field. And then moving down, I brought in my personal experience of being on a rotation, where the physician I was with at the time had a 12 month waiting period. He now has an 18 month waiting period to be seen as a new patient in neurology, which some of those issues can be very time sensitive. So bringing in my healthcare policy and advocacy work with my passion, with some specific examples, with my clinical experience was how I tried to tie this into my personal statement. And one of the things you can even reflect from what Amber has talked about so far is that, like with your personal statement, it really starts to answer that question kind of automatically of like when residents ask you like, where do you see yourself in that 10 years because we are we are not just looking at what we plan on doing during residency, it shows that you recognize what needs to be worked on within the profession, how devoted you are to improving the profession, and what what skill sets you need from from your training to help advance what your goals are already and you are already showing that you're working towards those goals. So from that, from that standpoint of personal statement, it really helps to combine a lot of the things that people are usually asking for. And factoring that advocacy role helps to ensure that there's longevity in what you have reflected on and what you are passionate about doing in the next couple of years as a professional. So next is the honors and awards section. So this is where you can list any recognition you've gotten for your advocacy efforts. So I use the community and service recognition as the category. I don't love that that's the category I had to use, but I didn't feel like any other really fit. If you find another category you think fits, feel free to use it. But you look for application and organizations such as the AOA, SOMA, SOMA Foundation, state societies, there are so many opportunities out there to be rewarded for your efforts. And also think of your friends too. If you have worked with someone and you think, man, they're so passionate, and I would love to see them get recognized for their efforts, nominate them for something. It's really a good opportunity to showcase your friends, brag on your friends, brag on, even if you've worked with a resident or preceptor and something comes up and you can nominate them for something. It's a good, good opportunity. Now with that, you really start to think like I said, Amber, like, why do I need all these awards? What do I need to do with these? Like, I'm a humble man, I just want to get through medical school and just call it a day. And while all of those points are very valid from that standpoint, it really starts to put, not just like that you have the awards in itself, it starts to put marketability, not just during as a medical student, but it gives you the headstart during residency. Because as you start to become like a professional, a resident into your specific programs, then people are starting to really look for those leaders. They really need someone to help lead that profession from that standpoint. And having these awards under your belt, it really starts to like let them know that you're committed to whatever you're doing, people have been recognizing you. And like when that hospital committee application opens up or when they want to send one of the residents somewhere to speak on behalf of the program, you already have that upper hand and you're able to say that this is what I'm able to prove myself from what I've done in my past. And these are like very big names that are able to back me. And this is why I should be able, I should be the one who should be able to progress from that standpoint. So getting that headstart as a medical student really helps you to progress as a resident and lets you, in terms like it's, there's that new set of competition or really lets you ensure that you're able to compete with your peers and let them know that you are the one who's passionate about what needs to be done and you're the person for the job. So next we have experiences. This is a fun picture that I love of me, Syed and our friend Annie from OMED at the OPAC reception. If you haven't joined OPAC also, they have fun receptions, just saying. Anywho, so unfortunately ERAS currently has advocacy lumped into volunteer and service. Once again, don't love that that's the option, but that's what we got. So we're going with it. So there is a push to have advocacy in healthcare policy as a separate category. So I'm hoping to see that come to fruition within the next few years, maybe by the time some of you are applying. So I believe six or seven of my experiences were advocacy related, and that came up a ton in interviews. They like to see that it was different. They like to see that it was consistent, that I was staying with these organizations, that I was very passionate, that I was writing about my passion for advocacy, that I was kind of working on similar projects in different organizations at the same time too. That's the single thing that came up the most in my interviews was the advocacy related experiences. And then working with that in terms of experiences, a lot of us when we're with our first and second years, we're in pre-clerkship, that's usually when we get a lot of our experiences that we want to put onto our residency applications, because that's the time where we're usually serving one of your school boards or in different committees and different specialty interest groups. But advocacy has always tend to be that long-term project. People say advocacy never rests. And it's quite true when it comes especially to healthcare policy with all of these new changes that we continue to see from a day-to-day base, people want to see a commitment and there's always plenty of opportunities for different institutions to get you involved. And from that standpoint, it's been really, at least for me on my application, I've been able to show that it wasn't just like a second year thing. This is something that I'm very committed to. And this is something that I see as a long-term project that I'm able to prove to the program that they'll be able to like see this from me even as a resident. Speaking of long-term projects, next slide. DO Day. That was one of my three most meaningful experiences on ERAS. So that means I got to write an extra little blurb about why it was most meaningful because I wanted to ensure that it came up to interviews. And this is what jump-started really my passion for advocacy and policy during my first year of medical school. So you see the dates that I have up there, 4-21 through present. So I marked it that way because this will be my fourth DO Day on the Hill and this is my fourth year of medical school. So I've been going since my first year. So this showed longevity. This showed I was committed. I was passionate, just like Syed was just talking about. So you can see how I have it categorized a little bit. And there's no right answer on how to categorize some of these things, right? So setting urban, sometimes if you've done like the AACOM, Government Relations Therapy, set up virtual meetings, can maybe put virtual, you could put urban, we'll see. But primary focus, I put social justice and advocacy. Key characteristic, I put ethical responsibility because one of my key core beliefs is that as physicians, we have an ethical responsibility to advocate for our patients, for ourselves, and for the betterment of healthcare. And so I just added a few roles and responsibilities. I mentioned some specific acts that I thought that I knew that I would be able to speak about intelligently in the interview, especially the Ready Act. That's something I've had a lot of experience with now. And I'm very passionate about that act specifically. And I knew that if this came up in interviews, that's something I would like to focus on. And then in the most meaningful, I just put why it was my most meaningful. It inspired me to become more involved. And I joined other advocacy efforts and dedicated time to having this lasting impact on healthcare. Another example is I'm also in Omega Beta Iota. I serve as the Public Relations Director. I've served two terms in that position. I've absolutely loved it. And that was definitely an experience I wanted to highlight because that's not an experience a lot of people get. OBI is an exclusive society. And then to make it onto the executive board is even a higher honor. And it's been one of the highest honors of my career. And I wanted to talk about it. So I put that on there. And that's just kind of what I did in my position, listed roles and responsibilities. So that way, when someone came up, said, hey, what did you do in this position? And then I could transition the, what did you do in this position to why I was passionate about it. So moving on to publications. Publications, it's a very challenging term when it comes to the application cycle because there's a lot of context that people are already expecting. And then there's a lot of new context that you want to deliver from that standpoint. For me, it's been like challenging that term whenever you go into from an advocacy role. There's like, when you think about it, what is a publication? The publication is usually you think about that journal article. You have like that background, you have your methods, your question. How did you like work out that problem? And then you have that result in discussion session. And while usually it's a very like scientific based, there's all, you can apply that model into a lot of different avenues. And utilizing that within advocacy has been a very big thing that recently people have been challenging more and more. And as you start to lay out and actually go through that process, you need to recognize that all that work you're putting in, it really is a publication and it's really is a research project. Just it's a different genre of research project. But if someone is asking for publications, that's something that really can go down and you can put that down as something that you have done for yourself. And from an advocacy standpoint, it really becomes fairly easy to get a lot of these things out because there's so much that needs to be researched. There's so much that needs to be challenged and questioned that as you exert and find those results in data, it's really easy to put towards putting it into different medias and getting more people involved from that standpoint. So in terms of other things that we wanted to talk about, like we really want to make sure that this, like we have continuous places where we can continue to advocate and show a couple of these things. So like Amber will go through a couple of these things in terms of like, how can you ensure that like, what you have done can translate to how you can put it down onto your application? So this full disclosure, this is not an actual poster presentation, but building off of the healthcare policy presentation first ever that's coming up at DOD on the Hill this year, I'm hoping to see a lot of you at, I made kind of an example of how you would put something like that on your ERAS application. So we have our names there and then the name of the conference, DOD on the Hill Healthcare Policy Presentation. Then the poster presented with the name, I just put Advocacy and Medical Students Overview because it was easy. And then the location, United States of America and the date. So if you're looking for opportunities, having a project that can easily be put on a poster that you can submit to these opportunities is really helpful. So for us this year, we're doing our first ever healthcare policy presentation. The OBI board came up with this idea out of us seeing a lack of opportunities to present healthcare policy and advocacy as a poster. So keep an eye out for future opportunities like this. You may also come across other poster presentation opportunities where you may think that submitting more of a policy advocacy based poster may be appropriate. Feel free to reach out to whoever's running it and say, hey, I don't have a peer reviewed bench research article. I don't have a case report, but I do have this really awesome resolution I worked on at my state society about this specific insurance reimbursement issue we were having. And I would love to make a poster to showcase what we did, what the problem was, how we're addressing that. Would there be a place for me in this show? The worst they can say is no. So piece of advice there. Next example, we have oral presentation. So this was a presentation that we did at the resident track at OMED. Bree was the mastermind behind this, flipping the switch using advocacy as an antidote for burnout, oral presentation, OMED. So looking for opportunities for oral presentations. A good first place to look is the AOA. There are opportunities at OMED, there are opportunities at DOJ for you to submit an application on a topic you'd like to discuss and do it and bring your friends, find someone you can pair up with and say, hey, I would like to do an oral presentation with you on this particular thing that I'm passionate about. Let's sit down and let's do it for this conference. And it's really fun to get to do. I've also spoken at several AMA events because I'm also involved in that organization. So if you're involved in any other organization, maybe even your state medical society, or if you have a local metropolitan medical society, they're always excited to get students involved and hear from them. So they may have an opportunity come up where you can put together a presentation and discuss that with them. So next is other articles. So this was a fake resolution I made up to show you how you would document. So resolutions, the general guidance that I have received from several organizations and several people in policy is that resolutions go under other articles. So what you wanna include is the name of the resolution. So here it's the resolution for increased advocacy opportunities for students that we presented and was passed at the Student Osteopathic Medical Association House of Delegates. The date it was passed, hypothetically March 27th, 2025. And then once it's passed, it's considered published. So then that would be published. If you have one in progress, some people say to put in progress, some people to say it's only put after published. I don't know which is the best. I had a couple of resolutions in progress when I submitted my ERAS. I just didn't put them on there because I didn't feel comfortable doing that just in case they didn't pass, because then what do you do? But if you're comfortable and confident, go ahead. I'm sure it'll be fine. The other thing to also take note of that is if you're submitting resolutions, like in this one, we submitted it to the SOMA House of Delegates, keep a follow-up on where that resolution is going. Because sometimes what ends up happening is if you're also advocating to the AOA within that resolution, that resolution's represented again at the AOA House of Delegates. And while it may seem redundant in terms of it's the same title, same everything that's going through the chain and going through the pipeline, even that changing that name from SOMA to AOA, it also starts to put how serious your words were taken and how as it continues to go up that pipeline, it really helps to engage more audiences and help more people recognize that this is something that you were very passionate about and you were able to get a bigger audience engaged as well. And SOMA's a good place to start to get involved in writing resolutions. I also know some of our specialty societies. My first and second year, I was very involved in the American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians. And they have a resolutions committee that they have students sit on. And that committee's job is to write resolutions to send to their House of Delegates. So that's a great opportunity to get involved with writing resolutions. You get paired up with other people and you can contribute in a very meaningful way. So as we were talking about kind of a little bit, getting opportunities. As I mentioned, DO Day, OMED, Omega, Beta, Iota. We have some opportunities, including the poster presentation and probably some more in the future. We've really been working on increasing activities for our members. So stay on the lookout for that. As I mentioned with resolutions, SOMA. State medical societies, a lot of state medical societies have physicians who wanna bring forward resolutions and would love to mentor a student and have a student's help on that. Local medical societies, same thing as state medical societies. Other professional organizations. As I mentioned, ACOFP has really great opportunities I know of for students for resolution writing. And then the World Wide Web. You can go online and find opportunities to post something pretty much anywhere. You don't wanna do it pretty much anywhere, but there's good opportunities through things like GoHelio, Medscape, even some more mainstream places like medium.com might be a cool place to post sort of a blog post that you might be interested if you wanna even speak to the general public about something. Or you can create your own opportunities. One thing that I have done this year, additionally, I serve as region chair for the AMA and something I felt was missing was the opportunity for students to virtually showcase their work. And I didn't want to have just your typical research. I wanted advocacy, I wanted policy. I even added a category for art and music. So we had a virtual showcase weekend where people from around our region presented their work. And so through that, I saw a need and created an opportunity there. So if you see a need, if you see, hey, I don't have enough opportunities or I would like an opportunity in this area to present my work, find some people that will help you make it happen and make it happen. Adding on to that, in terms of creating your own opportunities, Amber mentioned about like some poster competitions, they might not know like what an advocacy poster is all about. And sometimes you really just have to go and deliver that like, I wanna see one, I did one and I'm here to teach one type of methodology because a lot of people, when they don't know what you're doing in the advocacy realm, this is something that like, is like new and novel to them as well. So trying to explain that to them, trying to be like, hey, this is where I'm coming from, making sure your abstract very clearly laid out, trying to like mimic what they're looking for and trying to see how your components of advocacy lays down into that. One example I can give is like during the past four years, I had the opportunity with my friends to go to the UK, to the International Street Medicine Symposium because we talked about a resolution that we passed within the Michigan House of Delegates. And so from that standpoint, like we were able to go and converse with a lot of different people from the States and from around the world on like this, like how do we find, yes, there are problems within like how healthcare is addressed, but finding these upstream solutions through an advocacy route, that was something new for street medicine from the symposium from that standpoint. So it allows to take like more people to like recognize what you're doing and it allows them to take it back home and see if they can implement them within their own areas. So never feel like what you're bringing in is just something that's like not really needed within societies. It's always something that's pressing and needed. It's just some people just need more time to recognize like where are you coming from and how does it play a role within whatever the topic may be. So like we were talking about, so for in terms of getting opportunities within our own realm of wheelhouse, Omega Beta Iota, like we said, we are continuing to grow opportunities. We just had our first, or we will be having our first within this upcoming week, our own health policy research poster competition. It's always open for medical students and residents, and we had a very big turnout. We had over 30 plus submissions, and it really showed that students are engaged with wanting to become advocates for the osteopathic profession and to their own relative specialties and everything from that standpoint. And then the AOA, also another big branch in terms of having to implement a lot of different programs. Usually if you don't know where to go, you start like from the AOA, and they'll usually point you into the right direction in trying to make sure that whatever passion you have, however you want to serve your patients, there is that specific niche that both AOA and OBI will be able to ensure that you can tackle on within your own projects. So, you go ahead, I'll go first. So in terms of professional memberships, my first point, and I'll just talk about the first point here is that utilizing a path is not, you're utilizing a path not often used to gain entry. And from that, whenever you come into medical school, you're brought into your specialty organizations, they tell you to sign up, become that general member, and that's how you start to show your interest. A lot of students want to do that additional step. They want to see how much can you devote to the profession, how much can you prove to them that you want to become this type of specific position. And from that standpoint, advocacy has been a very unique standpoint from where I've seen with me and my friends who've been able to participate in different scopes within professional organizations. One example I can think is one of my friends, she went into like pediatrics, and she ended up becoming like the regional pediatric chair for resolutions. And she started to go through their own resolutions committee. And every specialty has this almost like by and large, because every specialty is advocating, every specialty is advancing their own profession, and they need these like policies within the books, they need to like ensure that these this research is being done, and that there's something being completed from that standpoint. So always try to look, look out to see how can you go into if you want to become an emergency physician? Can Can you go to EMRA? Can you ask them? Can I become a part of that student body in terms of reviewing resolutions, and that just shows that you didn't want to be just the ordinary member, you're going before and beyond to like be devoted to that profession in itself. And a lot of these organizations are free for students. So frankly, join as many as you can, especially if they're free, and use it as an opportunity to explore various areas of medicine. I was undecided on specialty when I came in. So it's good and helping me decide my specialty and also seeing what advocacy opportunities are out there. And so now when I'm in OBI, or when I'm in the AMA, or when I'm in the AOA, or when I'm in SOMA, I can say, hey, I had this great opportunity with ACOFB that I really enjoyed. And I like the way they did this, this and this. And I think we should apply something similar here. So even if you're not still a very active member, at the time of your residency application, it's good to have that experience good to have that exploration. And one thing, I'm going to mention this, because I see people do it all the time. They don't list the organizations they're an automatic member of. You're an automatic member of the AOA. List it. Check with your school. You might be an automatic member of your state allopathic medical society and or your state osteopathic medical society. My school were members of both automatically. People don't realize that, and they don't list it. So that's three lines on this application that set you apart from the next person that you may be missing out on. So if there is a chance you're a member of an organization, double check and list it on here. And as I was talking about, this just shows another opportunity to show off your commitment to advocacy. So certifications and licensure. If you're coming to DO Day this year, we are so excited as Omega Beta Iota to announce the start of the OSAC, the Osteopathic Student Advocacy Certification Program. There's going to be a lot more information come out about it. So just stay tuned for that. It's going to be a year long program. There'll be an application. It's going to be awesome. It'll offer so many advocacy opportunities, and you'll get a certificate that can technically go under your certifications and licensure. Similarly, for residency, there's the TIPS program, which is more of a policy-oriented program. And then there's also other public health-related opportunities that can help bolster your commitment to policy and advocacy. So for me, during fourth year, at the very beginning, before my application was due, I actually did a virtual rotation. It was called Pillars of Global Health, and it was through Child and Family Health International. It was really fascinating. We had different modules on different aspects of social determinants of health. And I got a certificate at the end saying that I had gone through this course. And I asked a few people if I could put it on my certifications and licensure. And the answer was an overwhelming yes. And so I put it on there, and that came out in several interviews about how not only my experiences and publications were tailored to advocacy, but having certifications in different areas of public health, including naloxone training, including the Child and Family Health International, really showed that I was—these are words of an interviewer—showed that I was dedicated to the betterment of health care and showed that I was committed and that I had the credentials to back up my work. And I felt like that really set me apart, especially to this one program, because my whole application, even though not everything was advocacy-advocacy related, it was public health related. It was global health related, and it just showed my commitment to the health care world. So now we're switching gears to letters of recommendation. And letters of recommendation, I personally believe, is one of the biggest things that you can have within your application, because that really sets off with, you can put as much work as you want within your own words, but how are other people describing you? And I felt like when you're well within the advocacy realm, your network begins to explode by a lot. You get to see a lot of new different faces. You get to meet people from a lot of different areas, regions, and just in different parts of their clinical training. And you see how everyone tries to fit a very common goal of becoming an advocate into their daily lives. So when you start to interact with them, probably you're not with them within the clinic. You're not with them within clinical settings. But there's still that osteopathic physician who's able to talk to you more about what they do do in the clinic, but they also get to see you as an individual outside of the clinical walls. They're able to talk more about you as a person in and outside of medicine. So with that, it's really important to I felt like it was really important for me to have individuals who I was able to work with through an advocacy channel to help describe me to help talk about me in terms of on my application. And when they start to do that, like, they also know what to hit on from that standpoint, I felt like it was easier to ask for a letter of recommendation from someone within such realms because they know what you're passionate about really well. And they're able to let like programs know about that to within your letter. And as you start to and this this goes back to how we were talking about like finding that resonating with your programs, you want to make sure that wherever you match like that, like things line up within each other. And it really helps to put into perspective of like, when people read through your letters of recommendation that what type of person am I looking at? Is this a person that's just dead set on medicine? Is this person will like willing to help with our program as well? Because you hear this time and time again, it's a two way interview, they asked you're also you're interviewing the program as well, you're trying to see how much of your values fit with them. And as they interview you, they want to make sure that you're also fitting well into their program and you can contribute to the program as well, not just for your own education sake, but helping the institution grow from that standpoint. I know a guy who knows a guy, you every time you want something done, just like how I said, you go to the AOA, they're going to know where where they need to send you off in terms of your own advocacy passions. Like a lot of people in advocacy, they know their way around. I would say around the entire nation, they know either someone within their own health care network, someone across the state, someone across the country, who will be able to get you either connected with programs, or their names are just big enough that they know, like, you know, personally, that if they read if someone is reading this person's name, that like, they, they mean a lot. And like, if they're recommending this, like you or someone else that they really mean this recommendation. And then the last thing that the big fat signature and I've like, I've taken the sample here and I've like, drawn out like how big that signature portion is. Sometimes like, it's it's less about the content in the recommendation letter, and it's really important on like, who's recommending you. And like, when when I say the big fat signature, it goes down to like highlighting that point, like, they're not just a doctor, they're a doctor, they're an advocate there, they held multiple leadership positions, because a lot of these things, like, they're very synergized with each other, that you know, that if you're an advocate, you're going to be in leadership, you're going to be able to do a lot more, you want to do a lot more things be involved with your community. And with more of these names that pop up, like chances are the higher the like, when someone's reading that letter, they're going to resonate with one of those things, if not all of those things. And like, so some, it really comes down to is like, as equally important as the content of your personal statement, or your letters of recommendation are, it's even have your like, where that recommendation is coming from, and who is backing you from that, it's good to have like your state society, someone from your state society saying, I trust this person or from the AOA, and just different branches of like, specific advocacy realm saying that, yes, we trust this person going into the specialty, and we would want to see them thriving to work with us, even as a resident and beyond. So lastly, well, I don't know if this is last, but the big thing after you get your application done is the interview. So this is when you really get to showcase your passion for advocacy by bringing it up in the interview. So from that standpoint, use you start to talk about like preparing for your questions. And like, that's really what what the interview is, you start to get it's that vibe check, you want to make sure that like, whatever you're doing, you're able to get the information you want from programs and programs are able to get the information that they want from you. But within those question parts, that's really where they're trying to dig in to see how well can you think outside the box, how well can you think on your feet. And I felt like for me, especially advocacy, there was always an advocacy story to almost every question that was told to me. Just just because of how robust your story can be, it really helps to like, hook on to one specific story for each question. And you were able to have that story ready, because because you were so motivated within that realm, to actually talk about it. And as you as you start bringing up that story, you start to bring up all of your advocacy work, but also like, why, like, you start to form your own response, you don't want to just be tailoring to what the program wants to hear from you. You want to respond by saying that, yes, this is what the program wants to hear from me. But this is also the additional things that I can add on to this response. So they know that I am more of a robust thinker than possibly other candidates, and showing recognition for how much power you hold as a future resident. I think that's a very big, important point. People like as as we apply to residency programs, as we match into residency programs, now, we think about like, yes, I need this education, this is the doctor I want to become. You also recognize that when I become this doctor, I like I know the responsibility that I'm holding, I know how much power I can hold in terms of shaping the healthcare realm around me. And in turn, it shows to the program that like, this is what I bring to the table as well. And this is how we can help the program grow from from their own standpoint. And it becomes more of a mutual agreement of why both parties want to be here at the same time with a resident matching into a program. So trying to, like tying your advocacy experience to the residency, very similar, like, like I said, you're signaling your vibes on for those are first and third years who may not know, like, you signal your programs, you want to let them know that, hey, that I am really interested in your program. And we've touched upon this as well. Like, every program has your own niche, every program is committed to a different thing, every program is very robust in different aspects. And that's why we create that rank list, we want to see like, this is where I fit best. And this is where the programs believe that they fit, where I would fit best on their list. And so a lot of programs have now moved on, especially, at least for me, like a part of my training that I hope to imagine, at least is a with an emergency emergency medicine. And for that, there's a lot of concerns outside of the clinical walls outside of emergency departments. And when you start to wreck, like recognize and talk about that with within your application, and within interviews that I know what it means to become an emergency medicine physician, it's it's but it's a lot more than just providing the care in the trauma bay. It's about like ensuring that my patients don't need to come into the emergency medicine, like emergency room, because they're they're getting the preventative care that they need. So with that, you start to build yourself as a as a resident, you you help to develop your own persona. And it shows that as as you're tying your experiences to why you want to become that specific physician, you're prepared to practice that type of medicine, and you're ready to deal with everything outside of medicine as well. I think as as news articles come to start coming out, you start to learn more and more that like, becoming a doctor is not just about like prescribing medication to a patient and just calling it a day from there. There's so many things up the chain of command, you got insurance, you got to make sure like preventative care, like what policies are enacted to ensure that the patient is actually able to receive the care from that sense that you're able to, like, again, echo that you are the type of physician who programs know that you will be able to become like the best doctor, but you're also able to become the best advocate for yourself and the profession. So some notable, notable questions we've received about advocacy. Why did I include resolutions as part of my publications? How can you add experiences to our program? How will you use your advocacy efforts for our patients and institution? That was a really good question I got. I had to think about that for a second. And then tell me about a time you advocated for a patient, and how did you first get involved with advocacy and policy? I didn't put this question on here, but I have to share this funny story. I was interviewing at a program, and the interviewer comes on and he goes, oh, so you're involved in the AMA. He goes, I just love their cool merchandise. What sort of merchandise do you have? And ironically, I had this big AMA, like, fake Stanley Cup that I had gotten at the last conference. I was drinking out of it because it was a long interview day and I had it full of water. And so I said, guess what I got? And I grabbed it and I put it down in front of the screen. I was like, this is what I got. And he started laughing really hard. And it was a great, it was a great icebreaker. It was also my first interview. So it was really nice to have that good nervous energy out. And that's probably why he started like that, knowing that it was early in the season and we were probably all a little nervous interviewees. But that was a fun, different question. So we just wanted to provide these as examples for you to be thinking about, for you to include, maybe if you have a list of practice questions that you add bullet points underneath. That's what I did. I had a list of like the 40 most common interviewed questions, and I had some bullet points underneath them. But also be thinking of out of the box ways they may ask and out of the box ways you can approach things because the merchandise was just so much fun and a really good segue into the conversation. For me, it came down to like, I was asked the first question, why did I include my resolutions as part of my publications? But for me, that was like a red flag, actually, in terms of like, why that came down to be, because they were a bit skeptical of like, my publication list after seeing that I have resolutions, like provided, they were expecting that like cookie cutter, like scientific articles. And it really like opened up to like, while I was able to explain, like, this is this is my thought process. This is what I believe in. It also allowed me to understand this is where the program is coming from. This is what their belief is like, they're not as like, like passionate or like as understanding of like, where I'm coming from. So it really helped me to at least, like, see where they needed to fall within my rank list, because they, they didn't, they didn't, like, to me, pass my vibe check, but to other programs, like they were definitely passed my vibe check. And I was able to see where they they need to fall within my list. So what's next from here? So me and Amber will be going back into the chat, and we'll be conversing with you all as we finish off round off this part of the presentation. But this is everything that we got in terms of getting into fourth year net coming up very shortly after we're done talking here. Dr. Brie Howerton, she's currently about to be starting her third year of residency in Detroit, Michigan, she'll be talking about like how she was able to utilize everything that we talked about and implemented into how she was able to use it as a resident. So from us, we'll wave right here. But we'll see you shortly within the conclusion part. But if you guys have any questions, feel free to put down. And then of course, if you guys need to reach out to us, they'll be at the at the end of Brie's point as well. But thank you from us. And we'll we'll keep on chatting in the chat box. Thank you. See you in the chat and see you this week at DO Day. Thank you to student Dr. Shirley and student Dr. Rizvi. Hi, my name is Bree Howerton and I am a PGY2 in emergency medicine in Detroit, Michigan. Today, now that you've heard a little bit about how to make advocacy an asset on your residency application, I will be talking about how to continue your advocacy journey throughout residency and beyond. Some of the content that we'll cover are advocacy and day-to-day activities, local, state and national opportunities to continue your advocacy journey. My day-to-day advocacy opportunities typically revolve around residency. That is kind of where I'm at in life right now, and it's very important to advocate for the people around you and for myself. Most of my time is spent with these lovely people. These are my co-residents. I'm very happy and grateful to be around such loving and supportive people. Oftentimes, we're advocating for ourselves, we're advocating for our patients, our co-residents and an equal spot at the table through GME. Some of the ways that we do this are through polls and surveys to talk about the data that we need to share with the higher up teams, representing residents on committees to make sure that we have a seat at the table, as well as sharing opportunities and best practices throughout the larger GME community within my hospital system. We also share best practices about health literacy to advocate for our patients. Health literacy is a difficult topic for most of us as we're not really taught it anywhere, but we're hoping to find it everywhere. I think I catch myself oftentimes hoping that my patients know more than what they really do, but I hope that I can be a part of teaching them how to have better access and as well as making well-informed shared decision making decisions. Being able to dumb down our medical jargon to a tasteful and digestible piece for our patients to make an informed decision is something that my program and I are very passionate about. Other things that we have done, and you can see here, are our simulation labs with our interdisciplinary teams. You can see some of our pediatric team in the middle and our trauma team in the top right hand corner. We've also been working on Narcan initiatives to help with the opiate crisis within our area. The other pictures are of wellness. Wellness is a topic near and dear to my heart as emergency medicine is one of those specialties with a high attrition rate and a difficult burnout rate as well. I'm grateful to be in a program that values wellness, but oftentimes the best resiliency and wellness tactics are tough. I'm grateful to be in our program where we share the highs, the lows, and everything in between. We also go on weekly lunches after didactics, and I'm grateful to be at a time that has a supportive family time vibe. Oftentimes we can be seen sharing with other residencies, which is a big part of our initiatives within GME, is to support all of the other specialties, not just emergency medicine. Outside of my day to day opportunities to continue to advocate and hone my skills, there are also local opportunities that we have within residency as a whole. So these two pictures of hospitals are my choices of workplace. One is a community site and one is a larger academic center. And within both of these places, we as residents have the opportunity to advocate on behalf of ourselves, other residents, and our patients through committees like stroke, safety, STEMI, and sepsis, everyone's four favorite S words within the health care system. I serve on our readmissions committee meeting. And my skills that I learned through medical school as a someone who did a lot of advocacy at the time really helped me to hone my skills to be taken seriously and provide a succinct and strategic way of advocating in today's world as a resident and beyond. Some of the other things that we do to advocate as a resident, we work to expand OMT training for both our medical students and my co-residents. So you can see some OMM happening around here. Even as a med student, I think we all understand the importance of having an OMT training. But as an attending and a resident, it's been really helpful to learn how to advocate for billing practices and time within clinic time as well as in the hospital setting to provide those valuable OMT skills to our patients. Also, you can see my picture from COVID. We learned a lot about advocacy in our COVID times. I'm grateful to be out of that so far. And I think that was another place where I learned a lot about advocacy. There are also a few other people who help our programs. One of them is some family and pediatrician doctors. And I think that was another place where I learned a lot about advocacy and honing it in moving forward about what I needed to say about my patients, my co-residents, and other attendings in order to make meaningful change within our system. There are also a few other people who help our program. One of them is some family and pediatrician doctors that we have at my site who, every spring and every fall, give us the opportunity to give back to our community through our fire safety days, as well as giving back our school physicals for our elementary and middle school kids. I think these are always good times. I think that we all learn a lot about ourselves and giving back to our patients in that capacity to advocate for good safety, wearing helmets, gun safety, things like that, that our patients may have known, but it's nice to get a daily reminder or a quarterly reminder, at least. When I think about continuing advocacy and residency and what really fuels my fire, I think about our state opportunities for advocacy. As a medical student, I was fortunate enough to go to FOMAS, the Florida Osteopathic Medical Association State DO Day, and learn a ton about what that system looks like and how our state legislature operated on a daily basis. It was really special to be able to learn from them and discuss different issues that were impacting us at the time and continue to impact us today. Now that I do residency in Michigan, I'm a part of the MOA MSMS Advocacy Day, which is really exciting. I learn a lot, and again, it's interesting to see how different state issues impact our different issues moving forward at a national level. I think in my experience, the state day and interacting with your state legislature is a little more rewarding because you see the effects of what you have advocated for a bit more quickly, and they oftentimes have more time to see you more frequently, which is also really special. I think for me, learning in advocacy as a medical student and moving forward has been learning to balance the succinct data-driven ask, if you will, for whatever legislation I'm asking people to co-sponsor with the storytelling. There are definitely places for both the data-driven objective ask, as well as the storytelling and why this piece of legislation is important. It's also a good place to learn compromising skills. I think as a resident and an attending, you have to learn to compromise in all capacities, whether that's with your nursing staff and other support staff, whether that's at the hospital administration, or really just with your patients and colleagues. These are skills that should never be underrepresented. Additionally, I think it's really important that you develop these relationships with your lawmakers, and you have to do it pretty quickly. They expect you to be some level of an expert on what you're asking for them, just like your patients do, and I think it's really special to learn how to develop those relationships very quickly, just like you do with your own patients. For me, at the state level, that's where I learned my passion for advocacy and what kind of protected me against burnout through advocacy opportunities. In each state that I've lived in so far, we've had the opportunity to be sponsored as the doctor for the day in the legislature, which was super interesting. I have yet to do it officially, but my name is certainly on the list. I'm very excited for the opportunity. I think also it's really important to learn to be an advocate for meaningful change. None of the things that we ask for in the state or national legislature are easy or soft things, and oftentimes they cost a decent amount of money. And so learning to be a part of those meaningful changes is very rewarding. For me, being a part of that certainly helps protect against burnout and enhances my wellness. I also sometimes liken paying your taxes to PAC dues as well as advocacy like jury duty. So everybody doesn't love going to jury duty, but it's an important civic duty. And to me, being a part of the health care system in the political climate that we're in right now, it's always and continues to be important to provide meaningful support for your profession, your specialty, as well as your patients. It's easy to just do the clinical work every day, but it's a bit more challenging to go out and advocate for sustainable change so that we can continue to practice the way that we want to. These pictures are all from State DO Day a couple of years ago. When I think about advocating at the national level in residency, it fills me with a sense of joy, unlike most other things. I think throughout medical school, I really learned about my advocacy passion and also my passion giving back to the community, whether that means my patients, my colleagues, or advocating for how amazing this profession really is. Advocacy has been a huge part of my well-being throughout medical school and beyond. At the national level, you learn a lot during medical school about DO Day and advocating for various issues. Medicare is always a concept that is on our list of things to talk about. And as a medical student, maybe I never gave enough credit to it because I wasn't in the thick of it. However, now it's really exciting to be a part of advocacy for all of the issues and really having the ability to provide both the story and the data to ask for meaningful change in issues like that. At the national level, you still have all of these networking opportunities, but it feels almost bigger. It feels bigger than yourself because you're advocating for sustainable change. In these pictures, you see things like OBI, state senate, and house opportunities. You see the glorious group of all of us from last year in the top right-hand corner. I think at DO Day, it's very quick, but it's very impactful. Learning how to share all of these things and staying involved is really special. These opportunities include staying involved with OBI as an alumni member, as a resident advisor, and I'm sure in the next few years there will be even more opportunities. This organization has done some amazing things. Getting involved in the BCCs within the AOA, like the bureaus, councils, and committees, has been something very exciting for me moving forward. DO Day on the Hill has just been such a special time for me. It's really exciting and very cool, really, to see your advocacy journey evolve from learning what you're doing to mentoring and guiding those behind you to strengthen our profession for a long shot. I think it's been really cool to see those two pictures in the middle, one of my mentees and some of my mentors, that have really helped me become the advocator in this world that I am today. During this time, you also get to network with some people within your state if you haven't spent a lot of time with them because you're busy as a resident or as a medical student. It's really cool to learn from the people around you and get more connected to the issues that affect your state, as well as those that affect at the national level. While we talked about Advocacy Day at DO Day on the Hill, there are also what feels like infinite opportunities to stay connected and hone your advocacy skills throughout the osteopathic profession and beyond. For me, these are a few of the organizations that are near and dear to my heart. I'm very involved in as many of them as I can be while still seeing patients at work. Being a resident is a lot about balancing your time with your passions and learning at work while also learning outside of work. If you have good time management skills and you want to be able to spend your time giving back, it's definitely possible. I'm a great example of how that works. FOMA is kind of where I started throughout all of these opportunities. They were my state where my calm was and really soaked me up, grabbed me and said, come on with us. Let's see what we can do for you. The Osteopathic Advocacy Network is an opportunity that I got involved with as a medical student during COVID to really stay up to date on all of the policy work that the profession has been doing while we're not at DO Day. The OAN feels like an opportunity to keep up on the day to day issues. AHEC is a Rural Scholars Program. I'm very passionate about rural health care and providing access to those who need it most. And boots on the ground medicine is something that really gets me fired up. So advocating for high sustainability for PSLF, things like that related to rural access has been an opportunity for me for quite some time now. The MOA is where I'm at now. I love my Michigan colleagues. I think our advocacy opportunities are limitless, just like kind of every other state. And I'm grateful to be a part of the organization. Obviously, we all know that the AOA does lots and lots of things, and I'm grateful for all of the opportunities that have been available to me throughout this time. The MBOME is also an opportunity place for advocacy within our profession. They talk about licensure issues, complex and GME parity, and I think that is an issue near and dear to most of us as medical students, residents and fellows. AWEP is something that I have been really passionate about recently as I've grown into my emergency medicine physician life. Same with ACOEP, as well as the Resident Student Organization as a part of ACOEP. There have been lots of organizations, but this one is very special to me. Growing and kind of solidifying my place as an emergency medicine physician within the osteopathic profession has been really fun. In summary, here are a few takeaway points. In life, while you're a medical student, learn about what makes you happy. Learn to advocate and be yourself. Find your passions and let it lead you forward. In applications, utilize all of your resources to advertise just how good of a physician you're going to be. Talk about advocacy and how that works out, how it will help you with your patient care, and beyond. Show them how you can give back to your community, which will help you get your spot. In interviews, tell the story. Show them what your application looks like, why advocacy is important to you, and what that will bring to the table. Be sure that you tell the story. Make sure that you have an example for basic questions around advocacy, as well as utilizing some of your experiences of advocacy to talk about things like difficult times that you've managed through and things like that. In residency and beyond, there are so many opportunities to continue your advocacy journey, whether it's at the House of Delegates creating resolutions and advocating for your profession, whether it's speaking on behalf of your co-residents in the hospital setting, in your state and national levels of advocacy, or like us, giving back to your community and speaking on behalf of what advocacy can do for all of us. All of our references today came from ourselves. We hope you've enjoyed listening today and have come back with many insights into how your advocacy journey can expand today. Here's our contact information if you're looking to see any questions, comments, or concerns. We look forward to hearing from you shortly. Have a wonderful day and a great experience on Capitol Hill at Advocacy Day at DO Day on the Hill.

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