Inspiring the Next Generation of Surgeon Advocates

There came a moment in my early surgical career where I felt I must exchange the scalpel for my voice to protect the health of my patients and prevent disease.

In such a politically divisive climate and ever-threatening public health crises, our country’s lawmakers and citizens need voices entrusted to care for all people. Physicians remain among the most trusted professionals in society; however, health professionals are leaving the health care field from burnout. Surgeons are recognizing that the diseases and outcomes of their patients are not only dictated by the swiftness of their scalpel, but by policies and institutional practices.

Inspired by my own frustration and with financial support for my Applied Practice Experience from the Policy Practice and Prevention Research Center from the P3RC, I decided to work with the University of Chicago Department of Surgery to build a 2-year experience for surgical trainees motivated to become advocates for the patients we serve. The goal of this 2-year fellowship is to equip surgical residents with the tools and skills to impact their patients’ health through activism in the community, statehouse, and our nation’s capital. This summer I focused on two key public health issues: prescription drug affordability and gun violence.

This summer, I met with representatives from the Senate Finance committee, House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, and numerous federal legislators to provide education on topics like hospital-based violence intervention programs, prescription drug costs, health care reform and other issues. These experiences have been quite educational and have allowed me to practice conveying research and information in a way that is digestible for policy decision makers.

Prescription Drug Prices

In Illinois, fifty percent of Illinois citizens worry about their ability to afford prescription drugs, and nearly a third of Illinoisans split or ration doses of their medication to avoid the cost of refills.  On August 27^th, 2024, I served on a panel to represent the hundreds of thousands of Illinoisans that are struggling to afford the cost of prescription drugs with Senators Peters and Villanueva. We spoke about the impact of drug costs in Illinois and emphasized that this is a matter of life or death. In an effort to further educate policymakers and citizens on this issue I organized a press conference of UChicago physicians that reached nearly 270,000 Illinoisans.

Gun Violence Prevention

In an effort to prevent gun violence upstream I created Lil' Scholars, a 501c3 organization where we leverage the transformative power of literacy to prevent gun violence for South Side youth. Third grade test scores are among the leading causes of inner-city gun violence in Chicago. We hosted our first year of the program at the South Side YMCA where our youth (1^st-4^th graders) finished the summer reading 50 books each. Perhaps by demonstrating early childhood literacy’s ability to prevent violence downstream we can solicit lawmakers to invest more into early childhood education and fight for more just public-school funding for high-risk communities.

Compensation for Victims of Gun Violence

Building on my efforts to address gun violence, I also spent this summer developing a policy brief for the Responsibility in Firearms Legislation Alliance (RIFL). The policy brief explains how a novel no-fault victims compensation fund resourced by the firearms industry, like workers compensation, can support victims and their families after injury. But more importantly, it intends to financially incentivize the firearms industry to take a seat at the table in discussions of violence prevention and gun safety.