CHAPTER
MANUAL
Updated September 2017
MISSION AND GOALS
We are excited to welcome you into the Citizen Physicians community. We hope this
manual gives you the support you need to join us in engaging your classmates and
community civically.
Citizen Physicians was founded in 2014 at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University. It
was started by a group of students who were engaged in a diversity of patient advocacy,
healthcare policy, and community engagement activities. We quickly realized how much
local policy affects our communities and how uncomfortable we were actively engaging in
local political decisions that affect our patients in significant ways. While each of us was
interested in different topics and participated in different student group chapters of
national organizations, we came together to address the absence of resources and support
to train healthcare professionals in direct advocacy and civic engagement.
We believe that all citizens have a civic responsibility to participate in the
democratic process. While barriers to engagement exist, we believe healthcare
professionals have a unique opportunity to learn about and engage in the civic process.
We aim to create a culture shift in the medical community: a shift towards
acknowledging our responsibility as citizens to understand local politics and to participate
in political processes. We have a responsibility as caregivers to work towards the wellbeing
of our patients. Providing comprehensive healthcare often requires voicing our
evidence-based opinions to locally elected officials. Our goal is that every graduating
healthcare practitioner feels competent in their ability to work with governmental systems
both as individual citizens and as healthcare providers who care for diverse patient
populations.
Our organizational goals are to:
1. Be the Rock the Vote of the medical community, increasing voter registration and
engagement with locally elected officials,
2. Strengthen the movement for physician involvement in policies that impact how we
practice, and
3. Teach future health care providers how to engage effectively as individual citizens
in the political arena.
Why arent we focused on a specific issue or party platform?
We understand that students involved with Citizen Physicians are passionate about many
things. We created Citizen Physicians to meet a specific need in the health care community.
To have a long-lasting impact on civic engagement in the health care community, we want
to focus on the basics: the knowledge and skills necessary to engage in direct advocacy on
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any political topic. We encourage students to concurrently engage in advocacy on the
issues that ignite their passion. Citizen Physicians, however, is non-partisan and we do not
endorse any issue-specific stance.
Our programming is exclusively focused on increasing civic knowledge and engagement.
We dont care what students are passionate about; we want them to have the confidence
and skills to have their voices heard.
PROGRAM STRUCTURE AND CONTENT
As a Citizen Physicians Chapter, you will:
1. Host a voter registration drive around the time of every new student orientation,
2. Motivate medical student to vote during every election (whether locally or via
absentee ballot) and work to eliminate any barriers to voting medical student may
experience,
3. Organize at least one program per year to increase medical students
competencies in engaging in political activities.
To achieve the goals outlined above, Citizen Physicians provides structured outlines and
informational guides on activities your chapter will take on in the upcoming year.
ACTIVITY GUIDES
The following are examples of program activities organized by Citizen Physicians chapters.
VOTER REGISTRATION DRIVES
To hold a voter registration drive, youll need to complete the following steps:
Speak with your school administrator about your plans and request the appropriate
resources (youll need a table and a couple chairs, ideally!)
Look up your local Secretary of State Office to identify the forms youll need to run a
voter drive
o Does your state allow online voter registration? Think about using laptops to
have people register more quickly and accurately! Check out a listing of
states with online voter registration.
o Contacting your Secretary of States office by phone is a great idea! The office
may be interested in sending a member of their staff to your event if youre
located in the state capitol
Outline your voter registration process in easy-to-read instructions that are bold!
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o It is important to avoid common mistakes, like not having the registering
voter sign the form, or not ensuring all of the required information is filled
out
Fill out an example form to help people get all of their information in the right
location
Prepare a handout for your area on how newly registered voters can identify their
polling place in upcoming elections and any important deadlines (elections, voter
registration deadlines, etc.)
Assign one volunteer the tasks of returning the voter registration forms in a timely
fashion. Please have this volunteer count the number of voter registration
forms submitted! This will be used in your annual report.
HOST A NUTS AND BOLTS CIVIC ACTION TRAINING
Decide the scope of your nuts and bolts training
o City/local
o State
o Both
Decide if you will host the event yourself, or have an outside group lead the
education
o Common Cause or Generation Citizen are two non-partisan groups that exist
in states across the country that will partner with you to offer this education
to your students
o If hosting a speaker, please clarify with the speaker that the event should
focus on the mechanisms of government action and NOT on a specific issue. A
variety of general, non-partisan issues should be used as examples but a
group should not select partisan issues or use this as a platform for their
organization.
If you will host the event yourself, refer to the Citizen Physicians Nuts and Bolts
Template offered and tailor it to your specific area
Look out for the red text for areas you should change or update!
If possible, set this event at the beginning of a legislative session or following a
recent election to capitalize on opportunities for your chapter members to practice
their skills
HOLD AN ELECTED OFFICIAL OR ADVOCACY PROFESSIONAL MEET AND GREET
Confirm 2-3 dates that would work for your chapter to attend and are good for your
medical school calendar (not the day before or after exams, not the Thursday before
a major break, no other events planned by or for faculty, etc.)
Write up a quick paragraph about your Citizen Physicians chapter
Identify potential speakers in your area
o Who represents the area in which most of your classmates live? Most of your
patients?
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o Are there any elected officials with a healthcare background?
o Are there any elected officials with a relationship to your medical school?
Your medical school Dean is a great connection in this area
o What non-partisan political education groups are active in your area?
Common Cause is a national organization with state chapters who
supported and run state civic engagement trainings
Reach-out to multiple speakers to confirm dates that work with their schedules
before finalizing your date
When you have finalized a date and attendees, work with your school
administration to publicize the event
Remember: you can still extend an invite to other elected officials even after you
have a final list some officials will be more likely to attend an event if they know
they will not be the only elected official
Week of event: send reminders and decide who will do welcoming remarks, plan
final logistics like room layout and nametags
o Make sure to name every elected official in your welcoming remarks!
o Elected officials love nametags make sure to have some on hand for them
(students will be more likely to speak to them!) and for you (they will be
more likely to start a conversation with you!)
o Remember to take lots of pictures it is great for your group and encourages
this type of interaction for elected officials. Make sure to publicize the
engagement, no matter how big or small your group might look in a picture!
After the event: send a handwritten thank you note to the offices of the elected
official(s) and/or the advocacy group(s) who attended your event
ON-GOING ACTIVITIES THROUGHOUT THE SEMESTER
Examples of on-going Citizen Physicians programs include (but are not limited to):
Direct civic engagement activities. Email students resources on how to register to vote,
learn what ballot initiatives are on the ballot, etc. Host debate watching parties and election
results watching parties.
Host events that give students insight into political processes. Invite relevant political
figures to come speak to students at your school. Examples of speakers include (but are not
limited to) the Chair of the State Senate or House Committee on Health and Human
Services, the Secretary of State, the head of the Department of Health, any healthcare
practitioner who is serving as a State Senator or Representative.
Education on current events. One of the most difficult things for medical students is to
find the time to stay up to date on what legislation is going through the Statehouse. Often
students hear last minute about a vote and go to testify at the Statehouse when its too late
and votes have already been decided. You may want to create an email digest that keeps
students up to date on what healthcare-related political activities are going on in real-time.
It can be challenging to vet articles to make sure the digest doesnt seem to be pushing a
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specific political agenda, but weve had success piloting this kind of digest making sure the
objective is purely to keeping students up to date on the goings on of healthcare politics in
our state.
Host physician speakers who exemplify affecting change. All of us know of
extraordinary physicians who have lead inspiring campaigns around specific issues. We
highly encourage inviting those kinds of physicians that make us think, I want to be like
her when I grow up. However, please keep in mind that there are already many forums for
issue-based speakers to talk about why their passion is so important. Instead, we ask that
you explain our mission and objectives to these speakers so they present their topic more
as a case study from which to learn specific lessons about successfully affecting change. Our
hope is that students walk out of these talks not only inspired, but also having learned
practical skills needed to successfully affect change: skills that can be applied to other
topics (not exclusively the topic area on which the presenter spoke).
CHAPTER EXPECTATIONS
In order to be considered a Citizen Physicians Chapter we expect the following:
All programming must not push any political agenda. Members should work to
maintain Citizen Physicians focus on capacity building through non-partisan,
non-issue-based programming.
Each chapter should have at minimum a president and a treasurer. Otherwise
you may build your executive board freely in order to meet the needs of your school.
Each chapter must apply for official recognition from their Student Senate (or
equivalent student activities body) and request funding from their university
accordingly. We expect chapters to be financially independent through their own
university funding streams. If your universitys student groups do not receive any
funding or limited funding that inhibits any programming, we expect chapters to
reach out to the National Citizen Physicians Team who may be able to secure limited
outside funding on a case-by-case basis.
We expect at minimum one voter registration drive per year around the time of
first year orientation (or soon after first year students arrive as appropriate with
your schools academic calendar).
We encourage you to provide voter registration opportunities at every event.
We expect a minimum of one event per semester.
We require the strictest of non-discrimination standards for involvement in
Citizen Physicians. All students are welcome. Period.
At the end of each semester, we expect a simple summary report of the activities
conducted by your chapter annually. This includes:
How many events you implemented.
The name of each event and a 1-2 sentence description.
Pictures taken at any events.
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The number of students you helped register to vote (please keep track
of this throughout the year!).
Other activities (like an email digest or working with the
administration to ensure students dont experience barriers to voting)
your chapter conducted.
The number of students actively involved in your chapter.
The names of any new chapter leaders and their contact information.
The amount allocated to your chapter by your university.
Brief list of plans for the following semester.
Summary of minimum requirements to be a recognized Citizen Physicians chapter:
1. Host at least one voter registration drive annually.
2. Host at least one program per semester (this can include voter registration drives).
3. Maintain a non-partisan, non-issue-endorsing reputation.
4. Submit the chapter report and any pictures to the National Team each semester.
If a chapter does not meet the above expectations, their status as a chapter of Citizen
Physicians may be revoked.
SETTING UP YOUR CHAPTER
We hope this manual gives you a good sense of what a Citizen Physicians chapter looks like.
But what are the first steps? This section is intended to give some tips on how to actually
start a chapter.
1. Review this Citizen Physicians Chapter Manual, sign and submit the Agreement
Form on the last page.
2. Find peers to get things started with. We all have different strengths and
weaknesses. It helps having at least one or two other classmates to get the ball
rolling.
3. Register for official recognition as a student group from your school. It helps to have
a little bit of cash for those kick-off events (although a voter registration drive really
costs nothing, so its a particularly good first event).
4. Make an email address for the group similar to the format:
[email protected] 5. Find advisors from the community to help get introduced to your areas political
culture and to advise on program implementation.
6. Find out who the key players are in your city and/or state healthcare politics. Ask to
meet with them to talk about Citizen Physicians.
7. Have fun! This is exciting stuff were doing. Weve asked over and over and still
havent found another group doing what were doing. Let your creative,
entrepreneurial juices flow! Remember that were a startup so were sincerely
looking forward to any ideas you may have about how to make Citizen Physicians
that much better.
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SECTION 5: SUPPORT AND CONTACT INFORMATION
If you have any questions or would like support in any way, please do not hesitate to reach
out to Citizen Physicians Executive Director. We are still a young start up organization, so
we look forward to collaborating with you and improving our programming as we grow
together.
Aaron Shapiro
Executive Director, Founder
240.485.8300 | [email protected]
CITIZEN PHYSICIANS CHAPTER AGREEMENT FORM
This form is to be filled out and signed by every President of a Citizen Physicians chapter.
I have read the Citizen Physicians Chapter Manual and understand the expectations of me
and the Citizen Physicians Chapter that I lead. If I have any questions or concerns about the
Citizen Physicians Chapter Manual, I will contact the National Citizen Physicians Team at
[email protected].
President Name: _____________________________________________________________
Signature: _____________________________________________________________
Date: ________________________________
Co-president Name: _____________________________________________________________
(If applicable)
Signature: _____________________________________________________________
Date: ________________________________
Please sign and email this form to [email protected] with CHAPTER AGREEMENT
FORM in the subject line.
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ANNUAL REPORTING FORM
School name:
Student organization registration status (and faculty sponsor, if applicable):
o Status:
o Faculty sponsor:
How many students are involved in your chapter?
How many events did you host this semester? Please list events, dates, and a 1-2
sentence description below.
o
o
o
Number of voter registration events?
o Number of voter registrations submitted:
Total amount of funding:
o Dollars awarded: $
o Dollars utilized: $
Please provide links to group social media accounts:
o Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc
Please describe your on-going chapter activities below, including any weekly email
digests, state civic education resources, social groups, etc.
