About JeffSTARS

Empowering the next generation of health advocates

JeffSTARS stands for Jefferson Service Training in Advocacy for Residents and Students and our goal is to transform the institutional culture at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University and the Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children making advocacy a core part of educating residents and students.

JeffSTARS trains residents and medical students to understand and promote health advocacy by:

• Providing an opportunity to approach clinical care with a “trained eye” and new understanding of how public policy affects the lives and health of patients
• Modeling and teaching skills for effective and life-long advocacy, including building relationships with and listening to community members
• Demonstrating the power of stories to engage the media and public
• Helping identify strategic policy issues and solvable policy problems, and incorporating advocacy into clinical practice and professional development
• Offering hands-on experience in a local advocacy project conducted with a seasoned community organization and mentor

Under the leadership of Dr. Esther K. Chung, the JeffSTARS curriculum was launched in 2009, thanks to a grant from Community Access to Child Health (CATCH) Residency Training Funds and the Community Pediatrics Training Initiative (CPTI) of the American Academy of Pediatrics.  In 2009 the project was extended through the support of a three-year grant from Columbia University's Institute on Medicine as a Profession (IMAP) via the Advocacy Education and Training Initiative Grant.

Core faculty members include Drs. James Plumb and Marc Altshuler from the Department of Family and Community Medicine (FCM) at Jefferson Medical College and Dr. J. Lindsey Lane, former Pediatrics Director of Undergraduate Medical Education.

Integrating advocacy and community opportunities into a required pediatric outpatient rotation helps create an experience that medical students and pediatric and FCM residents can apply to other clinical settings, including the resident continuity clinics. JeffSTARS also provides an intensive elective offering for medical students and pediatric and family medicine residents.

From individual advocacy to social activism, JeffSTARS seeks to empower trainees by giving them the experience, skills, and tools they need to be strong and effective advocates for their patients.