Physicians are, by nature and necessity, advocates.
For many of us, advocacy happens within the walls of our office: letters to the city health department for free AC units each summer to protect patients with heat-sensitive health conditions, requests to electric companies to keep the power on when patients’ bills are past due, helping patients navigate workplace accommodations or taking leave to care for loved ones.
Many family physicians have found our voice in speaking up for our patients, sometimes quietly, sometimes forcefully, on issues that shape care beyond the exam room. Our voices have pushed for safer medications, fairer coverage policies, better training standards, and stronger public health systems.
But now physician advocacy must stop being so quiet. It needs to be a roar.
We have seen in the past few years that physicians across specialties are engaging more visibly, more strategically, and more collaboratively than ever before.
For instance, family physician leaders at the American Academy of Family Physicians will head to Capitol Hill this week with specific priorities shaped directly by the troubles and terrors we are experiencing in practice.
We are advocating to make primary care truly accessible. Continuous, coordinated, preventive care improves health, saves money, and reduces disparities in outcomes. No members of our families and of our communities should be impeded or restricted from accessing evidence-based and science-based care.
We are speaking out to protect access to vaccines because the need to ground public health policy in science and data is real and incredibly urgent. Family physicians know that vaccines are safe and effective, and we must preserve patients’ access to common-sense vaccine guidance while remaining trustworthy partners to the communities we serve.
We are also urging lawmakers to advance tax policies that strengthen the primary care workforce, because targeted incentives that support physicians in rural and under-resourced communities are imperative to recruit, retain, and sustain family physicians in the areas of highest need.
All health care begins and ends with family and community. That is why every meaningful conversation about health and health care must include family physicians at the table. We bring the lived realities of our patients, the voices of the communities we serve, and the clinical insight that connects policy to practice. Health care delivery and the practice of medicine do not have to continue to struggle, but without family physicians helping shape the conversation, they inevitably will.
This moment is especially critical for early-career physicians, residents, medical students, and learners. Outdated payment models, inconsistent scope-of-practice laws, shrinking training capacity, and neglected practice environments must be reimagined. The systems of tomorrow will be shaped by the generation that shows up, speaks with credibility, and stays engaged. Your voices are not just part of the future, they define it. Policymakers and health system leaders need to hear them now.
As physicians, our voices carry weight. We bring firsthand experience about the realities of moonlighting to manage student loan debt, delaying starting families under financial strain, watching small independent practices close, and navigating chronic understaffing that turns daily workflows into obstacles. Policymakers and health system leaders need that perspective and they need to pay attention.
The imperative of physician advocacy at its core is showing up. This looks like attending local county medical society meetings, writing letters to the editor after clinic hours, testifying before Congress between patient visits, telling stories backed by data and credibility to explain what actually happens on the ground, and partnering with professional societies, health systems, and community leaders to push for practical, durable solutions.
However, advocacy is not always easy. It can mean added strain on already full clinical schedules, involve sensitive topics, and, at times, provoke public criticism. But not being engaged or having a seat at the table has far more consequences for our patients and for health.
Physician advocacy need not require a megaphone, but it does start with participation. Physicians should join their specialty societies, get involved with local government, respond to action alerts, and use evidence and experience to explain what works and what does not.
Advocacy is an extension of that patient care. It may start in our exam rooms, but it leads us to the halls of Congress and the steps of federal agencies. When we stand together through our professional organizations, our whispers become a roar.
We are demanding time with patients when we push for fewer administrative hurdles.
We are advocating for access when we support a stronger primary care workforce.
We are calling for prevention over crisis when we speak up for public health.
The exam room will always be the heart of our work, but it cannot be the limit of our influence.
Sarah C. Nosal, M.D., is a family physician practicing in the Bronx, N.Y., and is president of the American Academy of Family Physicians.
