Welcome to the American Family Physician Podcast, bonus episode 19, the 2026 advocacy episode update.

I'm Steve from the University of Arizona College of Medicine Phoenix Family Medicine

Residency, and today

we're going to welcome a number of experts to help us understand how family physicians, students,

and residents can make a difference for our specialty, our patients, and our communities beyond

the exam room. We first released this episode in 2022. We've made extensive

updates for 2026 and recorded new interviews. The opinions expressed in this podcast are our own

and do not represent the opinions of the American Academy Family Physicians, the editor of

American Family Physician, or Banner Health.

I believe everything is at a policy level. If we are looking at health, health begins where we live,

learn, work, and play. Those have the largest impact on the outcome of our patients' health.

How do we lead ourselves to create the necessary transformation in the U.S. healthcare system to get us to that point where we can make health primary?

There's a lot of opportunity and challenge ahead of us as a community

to really bring primary care to every single American. It's not just about the work that you do

in your office or your clinic, but that the policymakers do have a huge influence in terms of how

we're able to practice medicine and how we're able to deliver the kind of care that we signed up

to deliver. Health care is a right, not a privilege.

Whereas wearing your white coat is a privilege, not a right.

It's important to be aware of this and to use your white coat to advocate for and to give

a voice to those without one.

Those comments are from Dr. Renee Critchlow from our bonus episode 13, Dr. Jay Lee from episode

4 in 2015, and Henry Sanchez Ortegosa, a fourth year medical student at Rutgers, New Jersey

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