The Right of the People Peaceably to Assemble

This weekend, my housemates and I had the privilege of going to Washington, DC for the AMA's annual medical student/resident/fellow "Lobby Day".

 

It was quite the experience. There were several hundred of us there from most of the states in the country, and we spent our time learning about how to be more effective advocates for public health and health care initiatives at some workshops and lectures Sunday night and Monday morning, and then my fellow Indiana colleagues and I got to meet with staff at both of the Indiana Senators' and our various House representatives' offices to discuss some health care issues ranging from improving access to health care in rural and underserved urban populations in our state to the impact of the massive student debt on treatment and prevention efforts and outcomes.

It is an exciting time to be discussing health care policies, given the current political climate, the new President's emphasis on health care reform, and the apparent mandate that he recieved in the most recent election to go forward with these reforms. Just last Thursday there was a huge summit of government officials, industry experts, and interested parties, which met with the President to discuss this very issue. So it's an exciting time, but also an uncertain time, because even while we all know that the proper and best solution to our health care problems is out there, there are a whole host of ways that we might be able to do this wrong.


Knowing that, I would say I have what you might call "guarded optimism" about the whole situation. But at least I won't be able to say that I didn't try my best to help our elected officials "get it right".

Well, perhaps this has gotten a bit more 'political' than is usual for me. However, that's what I've been up to the last couple of days, and even though it may be one of "the two things you don't talk about" in everyday life, it's definitely important, and something that we have to talk about at some point.