LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Start Your Own Advocacy Journey

Editor in Chief Panagis Galiatsatos, MD, MPH, on what advocacy means to him

By Panagis Galiatsatos, MD, MPH
March 21, 2026 | VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1

Standing in a crowded communal room in one of the subsidized housing units of Baltimore City, I began my conversation with the community with a question I am always certain will cause discussion. My version of an icebreaker.

“What does health mean to you?”

Panagis Galiatsatos, MD, MPH
Editor in Chief, CHEST Advocates

That evening, I had with me a few medical students and resident physicians. As we were going into the housing unit, I had told them to pay attention to the answers, as the answers would reveal much about what the community desires in their health goals—and, potentially, how we as physicians should begin to think of health more broadly.

Sure enough, the community reaffirmed my prior comment. Answers included comments such as “jobs” or “food on the table” or “peace of mind” or “going to church.” Health for the community was a holistic recognition into purpose, identity, culture, and a cohesive social network. Leaving the engagement late that evening, one of the medical students asked me what role we can play as clinicians for these health goals of the community. I answered, with a selected simple locution: advocacy.

In this issue of CHEST Advocates, I could not be more excited to discuss advocacy. Not only is it my inaugural edition as the new Editor in Chief, but this position allows me to draw on my years of experience as a physician citizen, bringing forth my insight into projects of advocacy to medical education around social challenges experienced by patients and how such insight can drive community health initiatives and advocacy for community health goals. Learning how to advocate for our patients is an important goal for physicians and clinicians alike. What will benefit our patients should benefit a region or community altogether. And our patients are often the “canary in the coal mine,” signaling inequities, disparities, or social challenges in general.

“Learning how to advocate for our patients is an important goal for physicians and clinicians alike.”

Furthermore, advocacy can allow us to establish a sustainable background upon which our own medical interventions can work off of. For instance, it is hard to control someone’s asthma if a housing unit allows indoor smoking. It will be difficult to manage someone’s risk of lung cancer if there are not adequate occupational reforms set in place in old buildings with significant asbestosis. Medical advancements are amazing, and we can provide much to improve the health and well-being of our patients; however, these interventions can be attenuated if there are social factors in place that are unjust and unfair.

Advocacy also means to advocating on the behalf of science for the purpose of preserving science. Many scientists and clinicians alike are funded by federal funds, for instance. Assuring that the community beyond the academic boundaries knows of our work and understands its benefit is vital to assuring that they will vote to continue funding it. Advocacy promotes the ability to improve patients and health outcomes, as well as the medical breakthroughs destined to further those improvements.

In this edition, I have invited friends and colleagues to contribute work that centers on their own versions of advocacy. In the feature article, Silvi Rouskin, PhD, discusses how her work as a scientist requires her to advocate for funding to continue critical scientific research. Ajanta Patel, MD, MPH, shares how she used her clinical expertise while at the Chicago Department of Public Health to provide improved housing conditions without asthma hazards. Natalia Linos, ScD, explains how her background as an epidemiologist inspired her to run for political office. And Colleen Christmas, MD, a former program director, details how clinicians can make a difference through participation in medical societies. (Admittedly, there’s a bit of a bias here, as Dr. Christmas was my own program director, leading me to co-create Medicine for the Greater Good, an organization through which I can advocate for the local Baltimore City community that I was born and raised in.)

“Advocacy promotes the ability to improve patients and health outcomes, as well as the medical breakthroughs that are destined to further those improvements.”

You’ll also read about Thomas Valley, MD, MS, whose clinical research on racial bias in pulse oximetry jumpstarted his efforts to advocate for systemwide practice reform. You’ll hear from Joseph Sakran, MD, MPH, MPA, whose unique experience surviving a gunshot wound led him to become a trauma surgeon and nationally recognized gun violence prevention advocate. You’ll also meet Arthur “Art” Still, a former NFL player, who raises awareness about his rare disease and inspires patients to be their own advocates.

Finally, you’ll learn about Health Care Without Harm—a nonprofit that works closely with clinicians across the country to strengthen and amplify their advocacy efforts—and you’ll get a crash course on how to start your own advocacy journey in just five minutes.

To assume medicine does not need to learn and do advocacy is to be too optimistic. Good health care reform has to follow and meet our own medical advances and success. One of the greatest themes in health care and medicine is the ability to demonstrate that, through science, the goals of health equity can continue to be pushed to greater heights. However, health equity goals are not guaranteed to all people and patients. Now is the time to ensure that advocacy is understood and implemented.

Now is the time to act.