Medical students from Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine recently led an event aimed at increasing the number of physician voters in the upcoming midterm elections.
OUWB’s Lifestyle Medicine Interest Group’s (LMIG) initiative centered on creating handwritten postcards encouraging clinicians to vote.
On Sept. 18, several students gathered together in O’Dowd Hall to craft the messages for the student-led initiative.
“This is important, especially with how high stakes our midterm elections are, (and) especially for this state,” said Emily Mather, M2, co-community outreach coordinator, LMIG. “It’s important for us to encourage clinicians to vote.”
Traditionally low voter turnout on the part of physicians also factored in, she said.
The 2025 study “Physician Voting Rates in the 2020 and 2022 U.S. Elections” that appeared in JAMA Health Forum found that physicians “may be less likely to vote than the general population.”
Doing something about it falls in line with LMIG’s mission that includes learning more about public health and promoting a higher quality of living.
That’s why LMIG set out to send as many postcards to clinicians as possible with the time that is left ahead of November.
Mather expressed the importance of adding a personal touch from each student's unique perspective. Each card is distinctive to the student that wrote it.
“We are emphasizing it being handwritten … personalized, (and) individualized,” she said.
Madison Konja, M2, vice president of LMIG, shared the value of participating in this kind of event, especially as a medical student.
“You're being able to help your community and advocate for your future patients, even though you're not necessarily practicing medicine just yet,” said Konja. “With our connections to other physicians and hopefully their ability to recognize, like the youth and the thinking minds that we're standing up for our patients and kind of amplifying their voice as well at the polls.”
Grace Nolan, M2, president of LMIG, has an interest in health care and health equity and believes there are many ways to start becoming an advocate.
“I just think it's important that us as med students realize that there are ways we can start being advocates now, and that starts with small things like communication, like what this event was about, we don't have to wait till we're physicians to get involved,” said Nolan.
Nolan added that the group stands for more than just nutrition. Health equity is something that they highly promote and this event is a way to express that care.
“I thought it was a great way for us to show that we stand for a lot more than one piece of health equity,” said Nolan. “We're trying to address it on multiple levels.”
Rishabh Sud, M2, knows members on the e-board team and also wanted to get politically active as it is important to get involved.
“November is going to be a really big election for us all, and it's really good to get politically active, especially if you're in medicine,” said Sud. “I just think it's an important way to show advocacy and just get involved in the broader healthcare system rather than just being a physician.”
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