BUILDING A STUDENT PNHP CHAPTER: STRATEGIES AND TACTICS
PNHP Annual Meeting 2013
1. How do we build our campaign?
a. Define short and long-term objectives. Try to include at least one objective that is small and localized
enough to be winnable in short-term. Examples:
i. Try to integrate more health policy (and relevance of Single Payer) into medical school curriculum
ii. Establish PNHP chapter with medical school funding
iii. Expose each new medical student class to the arguments for Single Payer
iv. Speak to Congressperson about co-sponsoring HR 676
b. Find allies
i. Faculty and residents:
1. Contact Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR) chapter if school has one
2. See if any faculty are members of National Physicians Alliance (npalliance.org)
3. Locate members of PNHP at your institution to serve as mentors/faculty sponsors
ii. Other Medical Students: AMSA
1. AMSA supports single payer and often is well-established at medical schools.
2. You can work to build up your chapter’s health policy and make it focus on healthcare for
all.
3. Join AMSA’s Health Care For All (HCFA) campaign (amsa.org/uhc)
iii. Other health professions students
1. Consider forming or joining an interdisciplinary coalition involving students from schools of
public health, nursing, dentistry, pharmacy, social work, rehab sciences, public policy, law,
etc
2. Don’t leave out pre-meds!
3. Advantages are multiple perspectives, more people at events, draws more voices to cause,
increased power of activism when you claim participation of diverse groups. You’ll be
working with these people in the future and they are also affected by our healthcare nonsystem – now is a great time to get to know them and their role!
4. Tactics:
a. Start by simply inviting to events (and make sure to get emails on sign-in sheet)
b. Can contact student affairs administration in these departments and then call to ask
if you can email them an invitation to send on to students
c. Can contact leaders of student groups in departments that may have overlapping
interests to explore potential collaboration (eg., AMSA pre-med, health policy
interest groups at law schools, Medical-Legal interest groups, social justice orgs)
iv. Community groups
1. Examples include local consumer advocacy groups, political parties, unions, etc.
2. Seniors and business organizations have a significant interes in health policy and reform
3. You can help share resources, get more people to event, and possibly attract media
attention.
c. Make (and maintain!) a website. It doesn’t have to be fancy – a Tumblr, Wordpress,Google site will work
fine. Can have Facebook group as well.
i. Can include pictures of past events as well as upcoming events
ii. Post resources – links to other organization, info on single payer, etc
iii. Post updates on policy changes in healthcare, special dates (e.g. Medicare’s birthday)
iv. Identify who the group is and what is the mission and leadership. Include group’s contact info.
v. Rotate responsibility for keeping website current with other chapter members or designate a
webmaster.
vi. Examples: stahr.inpgh.org, cahpsa.org, caseamsa.org
d. Appoint or elect positions. This works best if positions entail specific, well-defined tasks. This helps increase
accountability and decrease confusion.
2. How do we plan events?
a. Scheduling:
i. Try to schedule several weeks in advance if possible. Speakers usually need plenty of notice.
ii. Try to minimize competing events with other student groups. By scheduling early and posting on
school calendar you may reduce chance while keeping your preferred dates.
iii. Be conscious of exam dates and class schedules (ie., don’t schedule lunch lectures on a day when
class ends at 11 because students will likely be going home.)
iv. Lunch events work well ifyour classmates are on campus during the day – it is more difficult to
encourage attendance at evening or weekend events
b. Advertising:
i. Maintain a list of members and email one week before and one day before. Don’t be shy about
email reminders – they are invitations, not spam. Short emails with snappy subject lines are most
effective.
ii. Asking for RSVPs may seem to reduce attendance or poorly correlate with attendance. If so, don’t be
afraid to get rid of them and provide food for first 20-30 attendees.
iii. Make announcements in first and second year classes on the morning of event.
iv. Word of mouth is important so talk it up.
c. Food:
i. Try to avoid pizza if possible.
ii. Schedule delivery at least 15 minutes prior to the time of the event as you don’t want to have to run
around worrying about this when the event is starting.
iii. For evening events, can consider potluck style or dessert only.
d. Sign-in sheet
i. Add these people to future events and organizational meetings
ii. Seed the first few lines of the sheet with the info of current organization members – attendees will
be more likely to sign up if they see other people have already done so
e. Consider having evaluations of talks for future improvement and to show for funding if necessary.
f. Take advantage of relevant national events to bring up issues relevant to Single Payer
i. Cover the Uninsured Week in spring
ii. Primary Care Week in fall
iii. Medicare’s birthday in summer
3. What type of events should we hold?
a. Lunch lectures:
i. Pros: Convenient for people coming straight from class, good for shorter presentations, food is
always an attractant
ii. Cons: Less time for discussion and questions if room is occupied immediately after
b. Dinner lectures:
i. Pros: more convenient for non-students, allow more time for presentation and discussion, set-up
and clean-up not as rushed
ii. Cons: may be more difficult to get med students to attend
c. Debate vs single speaker format:
i. Debates tend to be very exciting, potential to elucidate strengths and weaknesses of each side
*Adapted from handouts from SNaHP conference 2012 and PNHP National Meeting 2008
ii. Single speakers have time to cover issue in more depth, doesn’t promote as much grandstanding as
debate has potential for, easier to schedule one person instead of two, and you can still ask speaker
challenging questions after.
d. Informal post-talk discussion
i. Can hold a few days after lunch lecture for deeper discussion among people who are very
interested.
ii. Can include current events or some planning.
e. Film screenings
i. Shorter videos may be shown at lunch, longer films will require scheduling in evenings or weekends.
ii. Often very powerful and moving for students.
iii. Can hold at members’ houses and make for a social event.
iv. Consider showing The Healthcare Movie, Escape Fire, other new health care documentaries.
f. Journal clubs
i. Chance to have structured discussion of important policy issues, looking at evidence, but can be
difficult to get med students to read extra articles outside of class that’s not for credit. Settings can
be during lunch at school, during evenings at someone’s home (can do potluck or dessert), at a
coffee shop or restaurant.
1. Traditional format: each month one students presents article, summarizing results and
critiquing. Group asks questions and discusses implications for HC reform. Faculty member
helps presenter prepare and helps facilitate discussion. Most demanding of students, but
does develop important skills of presenting and critiquing literature. School may be more
likely to fund food for this event
2. Faculty member leads discussion: Focus on discussing content instead of critiquing papers.
Allows for broader but more superficial discussion. Requires finding faculty available and
willing to lead. Students may not do as thorough background reading, possibly resulting in
slower and more shallow conversation.
3. Students discuss in casual setting without faculty: easiest to plan and conduct, doubles as
social event, but disadvantages of 2. also apply.
4. Sample topics and readings: AMSA’s Health Policy and a Pint: series in mold of casual
discussion at a bar. http://hpandapint.blogspot.com/. Not as active as in past, but still good
example of topics that are feasible to cover quickly and yet meaningfully.
4. Who will speak at our event?
a. Students (ie, YOU):
i. Generally well-received, great opportunity for student leadership development, improve public
speaking, learn how to make case for single payer and respond to common objections.
ii. After giving talk 1-2 times, need very little preparation to give again. In public, there is a hunger for
perspectives of med students and physicians on healthcare reform – ask (and be prepared to bed
asked) to speak to citizens’ groups, political parties, churches, undergrad groups, etc.
iii. Readymade slide shows are available
b. Faculty
c. Regional PNHP leaders: Contact Emily Henkels (e.henkels@pnhp.org) if you need help finding a PNHP
speaker for your school. Funds are available for food.
Contacts for help with student organizing:
Emily Henkels, PNHP National Organizer: e.henkels@pnhp.org
http://www.pnhp.org/resources-for-students
*Adapted from handouts from SNaHP conference 2012 and PNHP National Meeting 2008