“Advocating for Your Patients” Webinar Offers Valuable Tips
Jim Braibish • February 5, 2021
Speakers at the January 30 KCMS webinar offered physicians in attendance much useful advice about how to be more effective advocates with legislators and in their communities. Some highlights:
- In advocacy, expect more losses than wins. It is a long-term process.
- Try building long-term relationships with legislators. Start when they are first elected. Contact your local legislator whether new or established, and ask for a short informal introductory meeting, “a cup of coffee.”
- Make your communication with legislators two-way. Find out their interests and speak to those. Realize that it takes a long time to “build your political capital.”
- An example of a physician championing a health issue with the legislature is Dr. Joshua Mammen’s work with tanning bed legislation in Kansas.
- Municipal government is important, too. Encourage physicians to testify before city councils on relevant issues and join local board and commissions. The physician voice is highly respected. With just a few hours of testimony each before local councils, physicians were able to boost passage of Tobacco 21 throughout the region.
- By getting involved in community health issues, I can impact hundreds of thousands of people instead of just the few thousand in my patient panel.
- We must rebuild public health. Will we be ready for the next pandemic? Public health is dramatically underfunded in Missouri and Kansas.
- Current Missouri legislation pending seeks to curtail the authority of local public health departments to issue health orders protecting the public.
- Just as important as legislative advocacy is administrative advocacy with the departments that make the rules for state programs and services.
- Sometimes we have to make tough decisions. Was it the right decision to oppose the 2016 proposed Missouri tobacco tax increase advanced by child advocates because it wasn’t large enough to curtail smoking? Would it have been better to make incremental progress?
As we finish 2025, I am humbled and honored to be your incoming Kansas City Medical Society president. I want to thank Dr. Sarah Hon for her leadership and mentorship over the past year, and our executive director, Micah Flint, for his administrative support. Our medical society began with the Jackson County Medical Society in 1881, later merging with Wyandotte and Johnson County Medical Societies to become the bi-state Kansas City Medical Society in 2018. We have led health initiatives including Tobacco 21 legislation, Medicaid expansion, the COVID-19 pandemic, the opioid crisis, and physician wellness. Our society is currently advocating for a speaker’s bureau, promoting suicide awareness at our local hospitals each fall, and leading vaccine education efforts in our community. As we move into 2026, our healthcare environment continues to change rapidly. With new medications and procedures, hospital mergers, EMRs, AI, scope-of-practice changes, hospitalists, and the rise of employed physicians, there are many challenges but also opportunities to lead in our healthcare communities. We must support one another to thrive and flourish. I ask that you stay involved and active in our organization as we plan networking and CME activities for 2026. Continue reaching out to colleagues as we learn from one another.
I consider it a sincere honor to serve as president of the Kansas City Medical Society this year. As we look forward to this new year, we celebrate our previous accomplishments and look for new ways to meet the challenges of our ever-changing healthcare environment. As we recognize our recent successes, I want to take the opportunity to thank Dr. Greg Unruh, our immediate past president, for his excellent leadership, and I look forward to his continued partnership, providing much-needed wisdom and experience to our board of directors as well as a leadership council. I am also deeply appreciative of Micah Flint, our executive director, now in his third year with the Society. As a board, we are prioritizing key areas where we believe the Society can make a difference for physicians and the communities we serve. With this in mind, we will continue our focus on wellness, advocacy, and expand our opportunities for in person social and educational gatherings. Our journal connects us in a variety of valuable ways, and we will continue its publication and expand its distribution. Under the directorship of Karole Bradford, the Society’s Foundation continues to do invaluable work. We celebrate those accomplishments and the charitable care they provide to our community’s vulnerable population. We are grateful for our individual members and corporate sponsors and welcome your suggestions of how the Society can best serve physicians and our community. Please mark your calendar for the Society’s upcoming events and consider inviting physician colleagues to join you as we gather to learn and support one another.
Kansas City area hospitals turn out for Physician Suicide Awareness Day: September 17th, 2024
