Most people seem surprised when they learn that before entering medical school, I worked in politics. I often get questions about how I made the jump between the two, as if it’s inconceivable that they could ever be related. At face value, they certainly appear to be wildly opposing topics requiring vastly different skill sets, and there was a time when I too believed they weren’t closely intertwined. The reality is that politics and medicine are two sides of the same coin. Both are driven by people committed to the idea of improving the lives of their communities. While the means of achieving success are different in each field, the skills are surprisingly similar. And as we begin the 2016 campaign season in earnest, I find myself reflecting on the last campaign I worked and some of the skills I learned that also apply to my medical education.
Teamwork makes the dream work
Presidential campaigns are huge in scale. They have to be. And because of that, there are thousands of people that each contribute something different. On President Obama’s campaign in 2012, I worked in Scheduling and Advance. Though important, it was only a fraction of the overall work being done that contributed to our success. I realized that the most successful people were those who could simultaneously excel in their specific role while comprehending the overarching strategy and goals of the campaign and respecting the role that everyone else filled. Patient care is no different. Medicine is trending towards team-based care, and, especially as we all subspecialize, we each contribute one part of the complete effort to keep a patient healthy. It takes each of us working together with respect for others’ contributions to diagnose a patient, care for all of their needs, and educate that patient so they can lead a healthy, productive life.
You can’t succeed without stakeholder buy-in
Success on campaigns is determined by your ability to understand others’ perspectives and use what’s important to them to incite activity. With volunteers and voters alike, you are trying to present their options in a way that convinces them that volunteering or voting is in line with their interests, passions, and principles. In medicine, the same is true with patients and their families. As physicians, we cannot force patients to comply. We may recommend certain medications and diets, but in reality, we have little say in what the patient actually does. Only the patient can decide which course of action to pursue. Because of my experience on campaigns, I find myself thinking of our jobs less as commanding the patient and more as empowering them. By giving them and their families the best information I can, I am enabling them to make the decision that is best for them.
Expect the unexpected
When I graduated from college, I had no plan. I knew I wanted to take one year off and then go to medical school, but I had no idea what I was going to do in that year. When I joined the campaign that summer, I never expected that I would discover that politics and medicine were as similar as they are, nor did I expect that that path would lead me to DC. And I certainly never would’ve expected to defer admittance to medical school at any point and to also apply to a Master in Public Health program. Each of those twists was unexpected, and each of them forced me to grow. I learned to accept that there is no singular, linear path to any goal. More importantly, I learned that it’s impossible to predict what different opportunities will bring. In the end, I ended up taking more than one year off before medical school but gained immense number of applicable skills and pertinent policy expertise that have helped me better understand the practice of medicine.
Get comfortable with being uncomfortable
In each of the unexpected places that I stumbled into, I felt wholly unprepared. Starting on the campaign, I was so outside of my comfort zone, and that feeling followed me through each of my subsequent positions. I felt underqualified and was thrown into these positions that all had steep learning curves. I was forced to teach myself the skills and policy knowledge I needed to be effective at my jobs. Since starting medical school, I’ve found myself in the same position yet again. We are constantly asked and expected to demonstrate our knowledge, and yet I find myself constantly saying, “I know nothing.” Being comfortable with both this phrase and the fact that I will always have more to learn has allowed me to more successfully draw on my knowledge and skills from other areas and apply them to what I love without fear of failure or scorn.
The list could continue on for ages, which is why I hope everyone will work on a campaign at some point in their lives. Campaigns are grueling, but the things you learn, the people you meet, and the work you do will change you. As we look to the approaching campaign cycle and consider the implications of what our choices as a nation could mean, we have a chance to reflect on how things that drive us and how our passions can feed into our respective educations. As physicians, we are trusted. Earning our MDs elevate us into a longstanding tradition of recognized prestige, one that people revere and respect. And by accepting the parts of ourselves that demand we contribute and serve, we acknowledge that like politicians, we are leaders in our communities. Joining a campaign is just one more way that we can each individually honor the same commitment we made when we started medical school: to help those who may be unable to help themselves. But if that’s not your passion, think about what is and pursue it. Even if it seems unrelated to medicine, if you’re anything like me, you just may learn a thing or two.
Leslie Appleton is a fourth-year medical and Master of Public Health student at The University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix. She earned her BA in politics from Pomona College, after which she joined President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. In 2013, she began working for the federal government, holding positions in both the White House and the US Department of Health and Human Services. She moved back to her native Arizona in 2015 to attend medical school.