PUBLICATIONS

Practicing and aspiring physicians alike must ask the question: What does honoring our oath mean when the health of our patients is most impacted not by the kind of care they receive from their doctors but by the political decisions being made by their elected leaders?

The students are not recycling trite statements we parrot after every tragedy. Instead, they are calling out what has become an endless, pointless cycle: mass shooting, lives extinguished, thoughts and prayers, rinse and repeat.

We write this as individuals from starkly distinct backgrounds. One of us is a practicing Muslim, the other a faithful Jew. One of us is a Democrat, the other a Republican. We frequently disagree on policy and ideology...(but) today, we write this as two friends bound by a shared commitment to the country we revere.

Tragedies are often a test of character. We can allow this massacre to be another moment of prayer or a catalyst for change. We can convert it into another cause for suspicion amongst us fellow Americans or a reason to raise our voices in unison. The LGBTQ community, in their eloquent defense of another marginalized community, has shown us how to choose the latter.

While we have undoubtedly made significant advances since the days of Jim Crow, appreciating this progress entails realizing the work we still have to continue. It means countering the structural inequality within systems and institutions...if we fail, we do so at the risk of not only leaving the promise of our own generation unfulfilled, but also jeopardizing the promise of those to come.