MMA Wins Advocacy Award for Work with U of MN Medical School

August 8, 2024

The MMA recently received an advocacy award for its Health Policy and Advocacy Elective that it created with the University of Minnesota Medical School, which launched in 2021.  

The course, which is offered to fourth-year medical students, offers medical students a hands-on opportunity to learn more about health policy and advocacy, and learn how the MMA functions as the unified voice of physicians and physicians-in-training for advancing the practice of medicine, the profession and patient health. 

Mandy Rubenstein, MMA's director of membership and engagement (right), receives the POE award from AAMSE President Catherine Johannesen.

Course directors include Juliana Milhofer, JD, MMA’s public health and policy engagement manager, and David Power, MD, MPH, professor and director of family medicine and community health medical student education at the University of Minnesota Medical School. 

The primary objective of the course is to create a mode of exposure to health policy and advocacy for medical students – outside of what is included in the traditional medical school curriculum. Health policy and advocacy have not been traditionally included in the medical curriculum in any significant way. This limited exposure has begun to become apparent to medical students who want to be able to connect the care they were providing their patients in the clinic – with the social drivers outside the clinic that influence health outcomes.  

The advocacy award presentation was part of the American Association of Medical Society Executives’ (AAMSE) annual conference held July 31 to August 2 in Savannah, Ga.  

AAMSE’s Profiles of Excellence awards, which acknowledge the work of medical societies that make positive impacts on their members and in their communities, are handed out annually in the categories of advocacy, education, membership, leadership, communications, and diversity, equity and inclusion. 

AAMSE is the professional association of more than 1,300 medical society executives and staff specialists. Through its more than 300 member organizations, AAMSE advances the profession of medicine through education, communication of knowledge, leadership development and collaboration. Member organizations include county, regional, state, state specialty, national, national specialty and international medical societies, as well as affiliated healthcare organizations and industry partners.