Navigating the intricate landscape of healthcare advocacy, Nina DeJonghe stands out as a passionate voice for change. As the director of government relations at the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM), DeJonghe has dedicated her career to uplifting vulnerable and underserved communities. Recently, her efforts were recognized with a nomination for the Advocate on the Rise award from the Women in Government Relations’ Excellence in Advocacy Awards — a distinction honoring emerging leaders in the field.
Here, DeJonghe shares her journey from Capitol Hill legislative staffer to influential advocate, offering insights into the pressing issues she tackles at STFM and how tools like VoterVoice amplify the impact of her work.
You’ve served in various roles in policy and government, including as a legislative staffer on Capitol Hill. Did you always want to do this work?
I knew I wanted to be in a position to advocate for others, and I wanted to strengthen and uplift vulnerable and underserved communities. There are a lot of inequities within the healthcare system, so my current role is a continuation of that vision.
How do you feel about being nominated for the Advocate on the Rise award?
I’m incredibly excited and honored. People who work in advocacy do a lot of work without recognition, so it feels good to be acknowledged.
I’m also grateful. In the past, when I would get anxious about speaking or being in certain roles, one of my favorite mentors would remind me that people are depending on me to be their voice. I always took that with me. I am grateful to be in a position where I can speak for others who may not have the opportunity.
What are some of the key advocacy issues you’re focused on right now at STFM?
While I work for STFM, I represent the Council of Academic Family Medicine, which is really four organizations. We prioritize primary care and are working to address the primary care physician shortage. Currently, less than 1 percent of funding is dedicated to primary care at the National Institutes of Health.
In addition, I do advocacy around graduate medical education, including working to expand funding for residency training programs in medically underserved areas. One of the bills we lobby for is the Rural Physician Workforce Production Act, which addresses the primary care shortage and caps in Medicare reimbursement for medical residency programs.
Teaching health centers (THCs) are also very important to addressing workforce issues and reaching underserved populations. They haven’t gotten the funding they need, so I do advocacy work around THCs as well.
Finally, we’re seeing a huge prevalence of anti-DEI legislation across the country. Our organizations are figuring out how we can best support our members to be advocates in their institutions and ensure the workforce is representative of the patient population.
How do you use VoterVoice to support these efforts?
In building out campaigns in VoterVoice, we create curated messages for our members to use for their specific committee of jurisdiction. For those who want to write their own messages, we offer bulleted talking points about key issues, such as the importance of THCs in their community.
The feedback I’ve gotten is that VoterVoice is very helpful. The menus are easy to navigate, and our members enjoy being able to access the database on their own time.
Prior to VoterVoice, I was sending out manual calls to action, which is a heavy lift. We had to figure out who the members were constituents of, track down those staffers’ information and emails, and then send everything back to the members. With VoterVoice, we already have all the information in the system — which makes it easy for members to advocate at their own convenience.
What do you find helpful about VoterVoice? Are there features you haven’t tried yet?
VoterVoice is an excellent tool because it’s right at your fingertips. If there’s anything we know, it’s that society and technology are ever-changing, so it’s important to have real-time access to information. And that’s how I talked about VoterVoice with our members when I broached the topic of adopting it. With VoterVoice, members don’t have to wait for me. They can get in there and research the issues themselves.
I haven’t used the scorecard feature yet, or some of the larger broadcasts, but VoterVoice offers a lot of components people can use to get easily digestible information outside of sending a campaign. I think that’s very important in this day and age, because sometimes people don’t have the fortitude to read through pages and pages of information.
rom what I understand about the scorecard, you can rate a member’s legislative record and see their voting record during different congressional cycles.
Can you talk about your role as co-chair of the Health and Social Policies Taskforce with the Women in Government Relations (WGR)?
I started my term in July, and our task force is very busy. We hold a lot of webinars. In fact, we just did one on gun violence reform. We have a maternal health summit coming up, along with our advocacy and leadership conference, which is when the awards will be given out.
I love being around women who are ambitious and have political acumen. It’s nice to be in spaces with others who are striving for greatness!
