All too often in health care, physicians may feel they are on the receiving end of changes beyond their control. Shifting from a passive to an active role can have an enormous impact on our perspective. Advocacy also has the ability to directly positively impact your practice of medicine and affect change to patient care. In addition, volunteering is a powerful way to connect with others that benefits not only the recipient but the giver. While we may consider the medical care of patients in the same arena as volunteering, medical care is still our profession. As physicians caring directly for patients, our individual missions must include advocacy and social justice. There are many ways to engage with advocacy through national organizations and volunteering locally.
The voices of physicians, individually and even more so collectively, have enormous power to affect change as we are trusted, informed, and dedicated to the needs and rights of others who are often lack that voice. Thinking about those next steps that you could take in your daily life to improve the lives of others is an exercise we are all called to do.