Hi everyone,
With the presidential election looming, there’s more politics in the exam room this year than I’ve experienced before. I don’t bring up the race, but patients do, perhaps assuming I share their views.
A retired engineer scoffs at global warming. A longtime patient shares insights from Fox News. A nonagenarian describes vaccine conspiracies. A retiree explains how Trump would protect the border, while a food service employee can’t sleep, afraid Harris will win. I tap their backs, listen to their lungs, write their prescriptions, and return to the break room, where a friend and I whisper and shake our heads.
My politics are shaped by my personal and professional identities. I am the grandson of immigrants who fled Eastern Europe to escape poverty and persecution. Cousins who stayed behind—and Jews later denied entry into the U.S.—perished in the Holocaust. Just as America offered my family refuge and opportunity in the 20th century, I believe we should do the same today.
As a physician, I support universal healthcare and a woman’s right to bodily autonomy. I believe the government should fund medical research, fight pandemics, limit the cost of medicines, and combat climate change. I believe we need to tackle gun violence, end poverty, and promote peace at home and abroad. I know human flourishing requires a stable democracy, respect for facts, and a commitment to decency. I support candidates who share these views.
Whatever happens on Tuesday, I’ll be back in clinic on Wednesday morning, and my core values will always inform how I treat every patient who enters my exam room, whatever their politics may be.
Enjoy your Sunday, everyone. I’m going to bask in the sunshine before returning to residency applications.
Mark
What I’m reading:
- A Dissident Is Built Different by Gal Beckerman
- This Is Not the End of America by McKay Coppins
- Springsteen Is Fighting Back the Darkness at the Edge of America by Mitchell Duneier
- Women Are Dying in Post-Roe America, and Your Vote Matters by India Baird
- Free Your Mind. The Election Will Follow. by Oliver Burkeman
- Death Certificate by our very own Ramya Sampath