The Dalla Lana Fellowship in Journalism and Health Impact and its antecedents at U of T have been providing mentored journalism training lasting one academic year, to medical residents and physicians since 2013. Journalism training strengthens physicians’ advocacy skills, deepens their clinical and interprofessional communications skills and empowers them with new tools for knowledge translation. The seven-month program teaches journalism skills to physicians and mentors them closely as they report on their own fields for medical and mainstream media partners, including: The British Medical Journal, CMAJ, Nature Medicine, CBC, The Toronto Star, The Canadian Press, Healthy Debate and Think Global Health (a publication of the Council of Foreign Relations in New York). The program is taught through a combination of weekly meetings with mentors, skills classes taught two-days a month, and ongoing reporting that physicians undertake on their own schedule.

The program is based on four pedagogical principles:

1. We emphasize high-contact, clinical teaching by mentoring physicians longitudinally for seven months as they practice journalism for leading media industry partners.

2. Our mentored practice is learner-led. We teach physicians how to generate media and public interest in ideas they themselves propose. These are the core skills of system-level advocacy.

3. Alongside mentorship, practitioners teach physicians a supporting curriculum of journalism skills including investigative journalism, interviewing, audio reporting, presentation and clear writing.

4. To help physicians integrate these skills into their practice after completion, we support alumni through monthly teaching calls.