‘We have to vote like our health care depends on it, because it does’

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American democracy can inspire civic and national pride while spurring engagement in community issues and political races.

But physicians of every specialty are busier than ever. What’s more, apathy can creep in, for doctors, other clinicians, or any voters who feel like they are being ignored by political leaders or bombarded with negative attack advertisements.

How can physician advocates help their peers or patients overcome those feelings? By encouraging them to vote like their health care depends on it, because it does, said Alister Martin, MD, MPP, founder of advocacy group Vot-ER.

Partnerships also help. The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), the American College of Physicians, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Academy of Pediatrics, Oak St. Health, Valleywise Health, the Kansas Hospital Association, the National Association of Social Workers, and the National Association of Community Health Centers, all have lent support to Vot-ER.

Martin, an emergency medicine specialist, sat down with Medical Economics and talked about voter apathy and why it is vital for doctors to be part of the democratic process. Sept. 17 is this year’s National Voter Registration Day, one of the busiest Vot-ER days of the year. Meanwhile, voters around the nation are preparing for the 2024 presidential election.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Medical Economics: Regarding voting, there are people who may think, why bother? My vote doesn't count for anything. Some physicians, frankly, may feel that way too. How would you respond to them?

Alister Martin, MD, MPP
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Alister Martin, MD, MPP: I'll tell you a brief story of a patient I took care of, where we actually got into this conversation. It was in lead up to the last mayoral race here in Boston, and I was taking care of a young Latina woman here who was an asthmatic. She saw my lanyard and it had the words “ready to vote,” and she said, doctor, why does your lanyard say vote on it? I said, well, it says vote on it because it's important for you to register – my whole spiel. And the patient says, why? Why bother? Like, voting has never helped anything. And normally, I don't actually have the time to pull up a chair and really get into it. Normally, I will say, yeah, I understand, but it's very important for you to make your voice heard, if you ever reconsider, here's the number you can text. But I had some time that day, so I sat down, I said, OK, look: You see how you have asthma, right? It's like, yeah. OK, so you have asthma at four times higher rates than other people in the city of Boston because of the community that you live in. The community that you live in, that I'm going to send you back to, has toxic smog, has pollutants in the air. Why? Because you live next to factories. You have an airport in your backyard. You have things that are polluting the air and the groundwater right there. And look, when you come into the hospital with your asthma attack, I'm going to write you a prescription for albuterol. We're going to take care of that, don't worry about it. But I cannot take the smog out of the air. I cannot take the pollutants out of the water. But you can do that by voting. And so we were able to help her, get her registered to vote. I have no idea if she actually voted. But I think that's my general philosophy, to really try and connect back this piece of, you know, at the end of the day, we have to vote like our health care depends on it, because it does.

Medical Economics: Our main audience is primary care physicians. What would you like to say to them? Or what would you like them to know?

Alister Martin, MD, MPP: I'm metaphorically rolling up my sleeves right here for the primary care audience. First of all, shout out to the AAFP, they're our newest national partner organization who's partnered with us in the work that we have ahead of us. August is National Civic Health Month, which is the month dedicated to health-care-based voter registration. We've gotten four states across the country to acknowledge and either pass the declaration or pass a resolution proclaiming August as National Civic Health Month. We're so excited for the American Academy of Family Physicians to be the latest Civic Health Month national partner.

But I will say this to my colleagues in primary care, and that is – and it's not just primary care, I'll start with you, but we have to broaden it. We got to clean up our own house, OK? Physicians routinely vote at far lower rates than the average voter. Routinely.

Family medicine practitioners, primary care doctors, tell each other, bring each other out to the voter registration table. Make sure to get your own Vot-ER badge and lanyard so that you can check your voter registration, you can help your colleagues register to vote.

But my main suggestion would be, it starts with us as physicians. We've got to make sure that we are making our voices heard in these elections, that we are registered to vote. If there's anything that I've learned so far from working in policy and in government, it's, if you're not at the table, you are on the menu. And too often, physicians have found ourselves on the menu.

And I would say primary care physicians, you are really shouldering the backbone of our health care system. Another way to put that is, you know, there's an opportunity for greater organizing and activism to take place, to really change the landscape of primary care and how it's delivered in this country. But it starts with voting.