With myriad public health challenges on the horizon, pediatricians are influencing child health and well-being beyond the walls of their practice by serving in public office.
Four pediatricians were elected in November to serve in state legislatures and Congress. They say pediatricians’ voices are vital to elevate the needs of children in the legislative process, and they encourage others to consider seeking elected office.
Seat at the table
After becoming involved with Moms Demand Action in 2016, Lisa A. Reynolds, M.D., FAAP, frequently visited the capitol in Salem, Ore., to testify and meet with legislators. She felt comfortable in the role as she pushed for changes to benefit families and children.
“People really perked up and felt I had a unique perspective and what I had to say was meaningful,” Dr. Reynolds said. “I made the decision to run in late 2019 when a legislative seat became open, and we won a very tough primary. I felt like I wanted to do more for patients than just a one-on-one visit.”
Dr. Reynolds, a Democrat, served as a state representative for the 36th and 34th districts, winning reelection twice. Just weeks after the 2024 election, she was sworn in to fill a vacancy in state Senate District 17 and will fulfill the remaining two years of that term.
Dr. Reynolds also was named chair of the new Senate Committee on Early Childhood and Behavioral Health. The group is tasked with addressing substance use disorder, behavioral health treatment, child care, early learning and more.
“In Oregon, like most states, the No. 1 reason why kids enter the child welfare system is because of substance use disorder,” Dr. Reynolds said. “A lot of decisions happen at the committee level. I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity.”
Dr. Reynolds is hopeful more pediatricians will join her in seeking elected office.
“Until we have more pediatricians at the table, pounding on the table about the importance of primary care reimbursement, about the importance of the pediatric specialty, we’re going to make ourselves less relevant,” Dr. Reynolds said. “I continue to see bills come through for behavioral health and housing, and there’s nothing for kids. I do think pediatricians need to get more politically savvy.”
Collaborative conversations
A 2022 Montana ballot initiative known as the “Born-Alive” Referendum 131 led Melody J. Cunningham, M.D., FAAP, to volunteer for political candidates and knock on doors to educate the public about the referendum.
“Criminalizing medicine in really nuanced situations makes it just harmful to health care and to patients and families,” Dr. Cunningham said. “I’ve been at the bedside with families who were saying goodbye to their infant or their child and knew that interventions were not the right thing and would really cause a lot of harm.”
She found that her voice as a pediatrician carried weight with many in the community.
Dr. Cunningham frequently testified in support of or against bills centered on child health. When the seat in Montana House District 97 opened, she was encouraged to run and was sworn in this January.
“For me, it’s collaborative conversations for sensible and shared solutions,” said Dr. Cunningham, a Democrat. “I think that’s a key thing a pediatrician can bring, and I think it’s the only way out of the fraught difficulties that we’re having in our country presently.”
Broader impact on health outcomes
A professor of clinical internal medicine and pediatrics at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, Beth Liston, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., FAAP, felt driven to do more for patients and families.
Following the 2016 election, Dr. Liston joined advocacy organizations and spoke at events focused on public health. These efforts led to calls for her to run for state representative.
“I hadn’t really considered a career in politics, but after years in practice, I started to look at what I could do more broadly in terms of impacting health outcomes,” said Dr. Liston, a Democrat. “Caring for patients is a little bit reactive rather than proactive, and I started to look more into public health. For me, the turning point was after 2016 when there was so much conversation about the Affordable Care Act and repealing it. I realized I had a lot of information that I wasn’t sharing as broadly as I could.”
She won the election and assumed office in January 2019, ultimately serving three terms in the Ohio Statehouse representing Districts 21 and 8. She has written legislation to lower the price of insulin and other prescription medications and fought against anti-vaccine and anti-abortion laws.
Last fall, she was elected to represent state Senate District 16, an office she pursued to have a “bigger platform and voice.”
“Most of medicine and politics come down to communication,” Dr. Liston said. “It’s about reaching out to people and connecting with them. I talk to trainees a lot, regardless of their interest in politics, but I think we really need to be trusted messengers — whether that’s in politics, in media and interviews, or whether is just the rapport we build with individuals and patients.”
Bringing pediatric perspective to Congress
While practicing general pediatrics for nearly two decades in Issaquah, Wash., Kim Schrier, M.D., never thought about serving her community in any other way. Following the 2016 election, however, she was disheartened with legislators in Washington, D.C., and was urged to consider a run for political office.
“I was quite upset about the policies that were being attempted or enacted under the first Trump administration — things like attempting to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, taking away Title X funding, wanting to overturn Roe v. Wade, threatening Planned Parenthood, and the general tone in the country just became very coarse and angry,” Dr. Schrier said. “I ran hoping to bring the perspective of a mom, a pediatrician and a physician, specifically a woman physician, to Congress.”
Dr. Schrier, a Democrat, was elected in November 2018 to represent Washington’s 8th Congressional District. Since then, she has been reelected three times, putting an emphasis on public health with bills taking on vaccine misinformation and disinformation, measles outbreaks and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I think pediatricians, at their soul, are caring people,” Dr. Schrier said. “In the House, it’s a nice way to get bipartisanship to find doctors in both parties because we speak a common language. We’re going to need vaccinations and good, sound public health counseling.”
Among the challenges Dr. Schrier sees on the horizon are protecting access to reproductive health care, advocating for affordable child care and preschool, and preserving access to benefits provided by the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
“I think you can’t really take on this job unless you are an optimist to some degree,” Dr. Schrier said. “It’s important to look at little wins as wins. There is still an important role to be played just by communicating with the public as a trusted messenger. I will continue to work wherever I can in a bipartisan way to continue to deliver even in these difficult circumstances.”
