Election season is upon us. In just a few days, people across the country will be headed to their polling stations in order to place votes for not only the President, but for other candidates up and down the ticket.

While one might think that all of the people on the ballot will have a background in Political Science, that isn’t actually the case. In fact, as of January 2023, there were 19 physicians serving as members of Congress. This means that, while doctors make up only 0.3% of the American population, they comprise around 3.5% of the Congressional body.

Now that the mail-in ballots have been distributed and people have already begun early voting, we wanted to use this piece to showcase some of the physicians who are either in or currently running for office, and how their experience in this field might influence their policymaking.

But before we get into all of that, we should answer a question that’s likely on your mind: why is it significant to have a physician in office in the first place?

While it might not seem like it on the surface, there’s a significant overlap between the practice of a physician and that of a politician. This became especially apparent during the initial days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

At a time when many were worried about the virus its potential dangers, people like Congressman and Doctor Raul Ruiz (D-California) advocated for swift action on pandemic relief, equitable distribution of personal protective equipment (PPE), and access to testing, even going so far as to personally make trips to test farm workers for the virus. Across the aisle, Senator and Doctor Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) pushed for the expansion of telehealth programs under Medicare and, in the years since, has spoken about the effects of Long COVID.

Beyond the pandemic, there are other people in Congress putting their knowledge of the medical industry to inform public policy. For example, Rep. Larry Bucshon (R-Indiana), a cardiothoracic surgeon, has supported sustainable Medicare reimbursement reforms, increased transparency in healthcare pricing, and workforce stabilization initiatives, such as a bipartisan bill he introduced in 2021 to combat the country’s physician shortage.

Although any politician will make judgements and decisions that one might find disagreeable, there’s no doubt that having a physician in a government role brings valuable expertise to healthcare policy, allowing them to make informed, evidence-based decisions and advocate for public health in a more knowledgeable way.

Helping matters is the fact that physician politicians are largely popular among voters. According to Public Opinion Strategies, 71% of voters believe that physicians make strong candidates for elected office. Voters cite physicians' knowledge and education, expertise in health care and the medical field, as well as their caring, compassionate, and empathetic nature as key reasons for their suitability for office.

Now, who are some of the physicians running for office?

To start, one of the physician politicians who has been grabbing headlines in recent months is Dr. Kristin Lyerly. Lyerly is an OB-GYN from De Pere, Wisconsin running for Congress in the state’s 8th district as a Democrat.

Apart from reproductive rights, Lyerly has stated that “the current healthcare system isn’t working for anyone.” To help resolve this, she claims that she will push to lower the cost of prescription drugs, expand health facility access, increase mental health services, and address the opioid epidemic.

Sharing some of these views is Dr. Kelly Morrison, an OB-GYN running as a Democrat in Minnesota's 3rd congressional district. On her website, she also lists lowering the price of healthcare, improving mental health services, and taking on the opioid crisis as among her list of priorities.

While there are numerous physicians currently in Congress who identify as Republicans, it appears that those who are running for the first time are, for the most part, Democrats. It’s uncertain why this is the case, though some have identified the Trump administration’s response to the pandemic and the repeal of Roe v. Wade as reasons why Democratic physicians have taken a greater interest in politics.

The fate of these prospective physician-politicians is uncertain, but if you’d like to have a say in how healthcare in this country is run, you can exercise your right to vote. Check vote.gov to make sure you’re registered, and if your state allows, you can even vote early.