"Doctors often vote and participate in community service less frequently than other similarly educated professionals – as workers in a helping industry, it’s easy to feel as though our clinical work fulfills our need to serve our communities. However, we operate within an incredibly complex health care system in which, perhaps, no specialty sees the challenges of health care more clearly than the emergency physician. 

 

In our position at the intersection of all fields of medicine and society, we have a responsibility to ensure that policies that affect us, our patients, and the practice of medicine are informed by evidence and are made with consideration of the needs of everyone.  Where legislation attempts to dictate physicians’ ability to deliver care or promote public health, our responsibilities go beyond the bedside and into the sphere of advocacy.  

 

None of us can engage in direct action, or even invest our emotional energy, in every issue relevant to the health of our patients or our practices. However, the breadth of factors that shape our practice virtually guarantees that an issue exists that’s interesting and accessible to each of us. 

 

Advocacy is for everyone; regardless of your politics, interests, subspecialty, or even your bandwidth at any given time, there’s a way you can participate."

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- Excerpt from EMRA Emergency Medicine Advocacy Handbook