Take Action Project

APPE Rotation Home

It’s easy to get wound up in our own affairs and miss the stuff going on in the world. It turns out though, that stuff is really important and we need to be aware and active. Here’s your chance!

As healthcare providers, we can’t stop our efforts to help people at the individual – we need to also think about how we can advocate for the underserved. Inequality is a public health issue.

Your job is to research something going on in the world right now that has meaning to you. It could be climate change, or Indigenous rights, or anti-racism and police brutality. It could be about equal access to health care, better nutrition in schools, or the right for pharmacists to get to take bathroom breaks & lunch breaks and to be acknowledged as health care providers. It could be about something specific to your home, or any kind of issue going on in the world right now that you care about.

Once you’ve done your research – get educated about your issue, find out what can be done to help, and then take action! That might mean going to a protest, or calling/visiting/writing to your legislators.* It might mean joining an action committee or doing volunteer work. Find any ways that you can take meaningful action within your reach (or within your stretch) and go for it! This is the way we change the world.

Here are some places you can get started, if you need some inspiration.

* Contacting legislators can seem scary, but I promise that it’s not actually that bad! When you call, you usually either end up leaving a message on their voicemail, or else you get a chance to talk with a staffer. (That’s just someone who works in the legislator’s office – a lot of them are college-age interns, actually!) So if you have a short script for yourself, a few sentences that express what you want to say, you can just read that off and they’ll get the point. You may also be asked for your name and address or zip code, to confirm you’re a constituent.

After they listen to your message, they make a note about what you were calling about and whether you were in support or opposition. They tally this information up, and if they’re getting a lot of calls about a particular issue or bill, they make that a priority.

So, if you want to advocate for some bill, position, or movement – don’t be afraid! They get tons of these calls all the time, and they’re totally blasé about it. 👍