While most clinicians don't spend their time within the business of health care policy, it is imperative to note that enacted legislation ultimately shapes the way that we provide care for our patients in addition to other important issues such as research funding, insurance/payor reforms, access for underserved populations and many others. Thus, it is important that physicians have a seat at the table and make their voices heard. 

In order to spark an interest in health care policy and begin cultivating future leaders, the advocacy work groups of the Fellows in Training (FIT) and Early Career Sections came together to design a new initiative and launched the "Advocacy Fireside Chat Series" in April 2021. For our inaugural session, we targeted FIT and early career members who had some prior advocacy experience by participating in the most recent virtual ACC Legislative Conference and the pre-conference preparatory webinar. We also recruited a panel of experts which included Chair of the ACC Health Affairs Committee, Samuel Jones, IV, MD, MPH, FACC, and Julie Clary, MD, MBA, FACC, member of the ACC Health Affairs Committee and Emerging Advocates Program.  With a small group of impressive individuals, we were able to utilize the virtual conferencing platform in a "Hollywood Squares" format to host a truly engaging experience between one another and our esteemed panelists. Our participants and experts discussed a wide range of topics from how they got started with advocacy to how they grew within leadership both at ACC and within their local sphere, and ultimately concluded with a few active topics circulating on Capitol Hill. Overall, the chat was lively, productive and inspired leadership to develop the initiative further.

Moving forward, we are working to organize many more "fireside chats" with the objective of garnering new member interest in addition to mentoring and ushering in the next group of advocacy leaders.

In case you missed the inaugural FIT/EC Collaborative Fireside Chat Initiative, you can watch it here.

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This article was authored by Brenton S. Bauer, MD, FACC, cardiologist at COR Healthcare in Los Angeles, CA.

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