Originally recorded on 3/24/2020Dr. O’Connell and Dr. Jay Lee discuss how physicians need to be at the table, not on the menu, as this is not a time for complacency. “Use your voice. Use it often and loudly. Otherwise, we will continue to be under-resourced and even less fully prepared to face the anticipated crush of patients ahead. Stop thinking like individuals. Work across institutions to begin organizing community efforts. We need to speak up for those who we serve, especially the vulnerable, and for our colleagues some of whom will get sick or die becoming the physicians they wrote about in their personal statements by becoming the leaders our communities need us to be during this pandemic.”Questions discussed in this episode include:What do we as a society need to be thinking about doing to help support those who are struggling during these difficult times?What advice would you give to someone interested in affecting health policy or getting involved in advocacy efforts?How are you approaching advocacy during this COVID-19 pandemic?How can physicians, other healthcare workers, and the public work together to affect health policy in the face of this pandemic?What advice would you give to other leaders in healthcare to have a maximally positive impact on public health efforts related to COVID-19?Your host is Dr. Ted O’Connell, family physician, educator, and author of numerous textbooks and peer-reviewed articles. He holds academic appointments at UCSF, UC Davis, and Drexel University's medical schools and also founded the Kaiser Permanente Napa-Solano Community Medicine and Global Health Fellowship, the first program in the U.S. to formally combine both community medicine and global health. Check Ted out on Instagram (@tedoconnellmd) and Twitter (@tedoconnell)! Dr. Jay Lee is the Chief Medical Officer at Share Our Selves, a nationally recognized health center serving the vulnerable and disadvantaged in Orange County, CA and giving voice to the needs of the poor by advocating for change in the structures and systems unjustly affecting the lives of our patients and communities.A graduate of the Program in Human Biology at Stanford University, he worked for a non-governmental organization in post-war rural northern El Salvador supporting local physicians and organizing public health projects before returning stateside for medical school at the University of Southern California and family medicine residency training at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center. He then worked at community health centers in Southern California and Boston, where he earned his Masters of Public Health at Harvard University with an emphasis in Health Policy and Management.Dr. Lee is board-certified in Family Medicine and remains active in physician leadership, currently serving as Chair of California’s Family Physicians Political Action Committee and as one of our state chapter’s Alternate Delegates to the American Academy of Family Physicians Congress. He has also served as a past president of the California Academy of Family Physicians and was a co-founder of the Family Medicine Revolution hashtag (#FMRevolution), a grassroots social media movement giving the power of telling family medicine’s story back to family physicians and building a global community of thought leaders.In 2018, Dr. Lee was named a California Academy of Family Physicians Hero of Family Medicine.Submit Your Questions for the PodcastSend an email to [email protected] or check out covidpodcast.comWhat Can You Do? You can help spread commonsense about COVID-19 by supporting this podcast. Hit subscribe, leave a positive review, and share it with your friends especially on social media. We can each do our part to ensure that scientifically accurate information about the pandemic spreads faster than rumors or fears. Remember to be vigilant, but remain calm. For the most trusted and real time information on COVID-19 and the coronavirus pandemic, both the CDC and WHO have dedicated web pages to keep the public informed.The information presented in this podcast is intended for educational purposes only and should not be construed as medical advice.Producers: Madison Linden and Christopher Breitigan.Executive Producer: Patrick C. Beeman, MD