Health Advocacy as a Medical Student: How to Get Started
Erica Leser
— MEDICAL SCHOOL —
Oregon Health and Science University
Portland State University School of Public Health
— GRADUATING CLASS —
2027
As medical students, we are all faced with the reality that we will soon be new physicians in an ever more complex, adversarial, and broken health care system. To adequately care for patients, we need health systems that prioritize access to care, disease prevention, and physician- and patient-led medical decisions. It is our responsibility, to ourselves and our patients, to be active participants in making our system better. The medical student voice has more power than many of us may realize—policymakers, legislators, and other politicians are eager for our perspectives; we just need to make ourselves heard. There are countless ways for us as medical students to get involved with health advocacy and policymaking. The question is: where do we start?
The first step to being an advocate is to know who represents us. This includes federal, state, and local representatives. As constituents, our voices are important and our perspective as medical students carries weight. We can find our federal senators and house representatives here enter the zip code associated with a voting address to get the names and contact information of that state's two senators and one or more representative(s). Our state legislators are found here selecting the state we vote in will take us to that state's legislative website. Somewhere on that webpage will be a link or form that says “Find My Legislator” (North Dakota) , “Discover Your District and Who Represents You” (Oregon) , “Who Represents Me?” (Texas) , “Who is my Assemblymember” (New York) , or something similar. If the link or form cannot be found on the state's website, searching “who is my state representative [state]” will lead to the right place. Find a governor's website with contact information here and contact information for city, county, and town officials here. Now that we have this information, what do we do with it? Call and leave voicemails, send e-mails, sign up for mailing lists, and attend town halls. If there is a health care issue in the news, we let our legislators know how we feel about it. Each phone call, voicemail, and e-mail matters.
State medical associations are also key access points for health advocacy. As a first-year medical student, I joined the Oregon Medical Association (OMA) , Oregon's professional organization representing physicians, physician associates, medical students, and physician assistant students. I was then able to join several committees where I worked firsthand to develop organizational policy that impacts how we advocate in the state capital and in Washington, DC, for health policies. Each state has a similar organization; membership for medical students is typically complimentary and opportunities for involvement can include joining the medical student section, joining committees that decide on policy and legislative action, visiting the state capitol building to meet with legislators, and more.
Finally, ACP's advocacy resources are included in the complimentary student membership. These resources include an Advocacy Toolkit with information about how to get involved. ACP also has an annual advocacy event, where ACP members meet with federal representatives; state ACP chapters can help medical students with funding to attend. If we are looking for state policy information and webinars, ACP has us covered. There is also ACP's Legislative Action Center where we can find easy quick-fill forms on current issues, guides on how to advocate for specific policies, ready-to-use talking points, customizable sample e-mails, and more resources to help us communicate with our members of Congress. Finally, make sure to read the ACP Advocate newsletter to stay up-to-date about what ACP is advocating about on our behalf.
These are just a few starting points for participating in health advocacy. Know that there are many more ways to get involved. We can submit written and verbal testimony on bills at the state and federal level, work with political action committees, submit self-drafted policies to advocacy organizations, and so much more. Once we get involved with advocacy, the opportunities to share our voices as medical students will only increase. As the future of medicine, our voices matter. If we want the system we work in to change for the better, we have an obligation to be part of the solution. This is where we start.
Back to the May 2026 issue of ACP IMpact