The presidential election of 2016 is an unsettling memory for so many of us no matter who we supported in that election. Yet no matter how upset, disappointed, or triumphant you may feel with the election results, President-elect Trump must join with us to further focus efforts on doing what we all strive to do each and every day—improve the health and wellbeing of all children not just in this country but in this world.
As pediatricians, we must not let emotions get the better of us and paralyze us with anger and apathy about our ability to make a difference given the paucity of discussion during the presidential campaign specifically on issues regarding children’s health. Instead, we must look for ways to educate President Trump, our Congress, our local legislatures and city councils supportively and collaboratively. To help make that happen, the leadership of our AAP, specifically CEO Dr. Karen Remley, AAP Presidents for 2016 and 2017 –Drs. Benard Dreyer and Fernando Stein, and Mark Del Monte, AAP Chief Deputy and Senior Vice President for Advocacy and External Affairs offer a timely and important commentary(10.1542/peds.2016-3611) that we need to share with others involved in the wellbeing of children and then advocate for and implement the thoughts and ideas shared in this timely editorial as well as in the document recently published by the AAP-- the Blueprint for Children.
If you haven’t read the Blueprint, please do—it really frames our work as child advocates for the next administration—work that we must continue to do regardless of who won this election. Our hope is that President-elect Trump will pay attention to the messages in this commentary and in the Blueprint—but that can only happen if we join together to make sure we provide solidarity in that message as champions for the health and wellbeing of all the children we serve.
