Health advocacy in a competency-based curriculum: The emerging role of global surgery

With the introduction of the CanMEDS program by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC) in the 1990s, a new comprehensive framework for medical education was introduced. The program outlined seven physician roles: medical expert, scholar, communicator, collaborator, health advocate, manager, and professional. While recognizing the importance of the broader role the physician plays in our communities and health systems, the program required that medical trainees be formally evaluated in each of these domains. The CanMEDS roles have now long formed the basis for undergraduate and postgraduate medical curricula and are well embedded within the lexicon of modern medical education