The ACS recently launched a new Strategic Plan, designed to advance organizational priorities and provide value to surgeons, the profession, and the patients they serve. The plan has four pillars and one foundational concept. This week, the ACS Brief highlights the fourth pillar.
Pillar 4: Unify and Advocate
The fourth pillar of the ACS Strategic Plan focuses on uniting surgeons to advocate for their interests and the interests of their patients.
An objective of this pillar is to leverage collective influence to protect, preserve, and advance surgeons as care team leaders. That includes advocacy on trauma care, including pursuing creation of a National Trauma and Emergency Preparedness System and Regional Medical Operations Coordinating Centers for better coordination of trauma care in routine and mass-casualty scenarios. This objective also includes meeting with leaders in the current presidential administration, as remaining engaged is crucial for ensuring optimal outcomes for surgeons and patients.
Being the unified voice of all surgeons also means addressing surgeons’ pressing concerns. To that end, this pillar includes an emphasis on engaging members in advocacy and developing new initiatives to ensure this advocacy reflects surgeons’ needs. Additionally, the University of North Carolina Sheps Center for Health Services Research is collaborating with the ACS to analyze the geographical distribution of surgeons and surgical care nationwide, with a goal of advocating for greater support to rural and other underserved areas.
The Unify and Advocate pillar also includes working with the surgical society coalition to advocate for policies and practices that foster patient trust and result in high-quality care. This includes engagement with The Joint Commission, US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and US Congress to communicate the ACS vision and propose adoption of ACS programs and principles.
Finally, this pillar includes improving member services via new resources on practice management and aligning and promoting ACS offerings that correspond with member career stages.
Being a voice for all surgeons is a crucial role for the ACS and a task essential to delivering the highest quality of surgical care to all patients.
See our previous articles on the first, second, and third pillars of the ACS Strategic Plan linked below. A forthcoming final article on the ACS Strategic Plan will be published in October.
Read more:
Introducing the New ACS Strategic Plan – Executive Director’s Update (July/August 2025 Bulletin)
Pillar 1: Advance Patient-Centered Care and Surgical Quality (August 5 ACS Brief)
Pillar 2: Revolutionize and Educate (August 19 ACS Brief)
Pillar 3: Innovate and Accelerate (September 9 ACS Brief)
