What Happens When a Pediatrician Takes On Congress - Dr. Annie Andrews on Turning Clinical Advocacy into Political Action

Dr. Annie Andrews has spent over 15 years as a pediatric hospitalist, caring for children on some of the worst days of their lives - kids facing chronic illness, gunshot wounds, and the daily toll of poverty. Over time, she realized that many of these crises could be traced upstream to broken policies, not just broken bodies. Instead of accepting those failures as inevitable, Annie decided to run for public office. First for Congress and now for the U.S. Senate in South Carolina, taking on incumbent Lindsey Graham. Fierce, unapologetic, and unafraid to “throw sharp elbows” on behalf of children, she’s bringing a physician’s perspective to a political arena she says is desperately short on science, empathy, and truth.

On this episode of How I Doctor, Dr. Graham Walker talks with Annie about why more physicians need to step into politics, how to combat misinformation without losing credibility, and the communication skills that make doctors uniquely suited to lead. They tackle the gender inequities still baked into medicine, the role of storytelling in rebuilding trust, and why Annie believes pediatricians are among the last, best messengers in a skeptical public. From confronting RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine rhetoric to calling for systemic solutions instead of policy “band-aids,” this conversation is a blueprint for turning clinical advocacy into political action.

If you’ve ever wondered how your medical training could be applied beyond the hospital walls, Annie’s story is proof that those skills are not only transferable but that they’re desperately needed. Here are the lessons Annie’s learned from years of practicing medicine, running for office, and speaking out on some of the most contentious issues in healthcare.

From the Bedside to the Ballot: Why Physicians Make Strong Political Leaders

“I have to develop trust with these parents in a matter of minutes… and that is an incredibly complex social interaction that doctors take for granted because we do it all day every day. If you can do that well… then you can certainly get out on the campaign trail and talk to voters about what their problems are.”

Years of walking into high-stakes situations, earning trust in minutes, and communicating clearly under pressure make physicians uniquely equipped for public service. Annie argues that the same skills she used to build rapport with families in crisis now help her connect with voters and navigate the political arena. For doctors, she says, leadership outside of medicine isn’t a leap it’s a natural extension of the work they already do.

Combating Misinformation with Credibility

“My opinion is not an opinion, it’s a… evidence-based recommendation. But we can’t do it in this ivory tower, ‘I’m right because I’m a doctor’ kind of way.”

Misinformation thrives when expertise is presented as just another “opinion.” Annie believes the key to pushing back is consistency, relatability, and storytelling without retreating into medical jargon or an air of superiority. By pairing evidence with emotion, physicians can reach audiences who might otherwise tune them out.

When More Women Doesn’t Mean More Equality: The Gender Gap in Medicine

“It wasn’t until my most recent job that I ever had a female boss…There’s still so much gender inequity baked into the practice of medicine.”

Even in pediatrics, where the majority of physicians are women, men still dominate leadership roles and pay disparities persist. Annie connects this inequity to larger systemic biases and points out that representation at the top is critical to changing policy and culture. Her experience underscores that gender inequity isn’t just a problem in male-heavy specialties—it’s embedded across the profession.

Read Offcall’s latest report on the gender pay gap in Emergency Medicine

Annie Andrews’ journey from pediatric hospitalist to U.S. Senate candidate is a reminder that the skills physicians use every day - building trust, communicating clearly, and solving complex problems - are just as critical in public life as they are in medicine. For clinicians frustrated by a broken healthcare system, her story offers both a roadmap and an invitation: your voice matters, and the time to use it is now.

Find out more about Annie here and connect with her on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/annieandrewsmd/

Watch her campaign launch video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8wMNLaSNW4

To make sure you don’t miss an episode of How I Doctor, subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also read the full transcript of the episode below.

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Transcript

Dr. Annie Andrews:
RFK Junior recently said his goal is to have everybody in America wearing a wearable within a few years because there are patients who don't know where their next meal is coming from and can't afford an albuterol inhaler, needs a ring to tell them how much they're sleeping at night. He's so detached from reality. But you're right. We know the solutions we have to get ourselves in the rooms and the room right now is Instagram and TikTok and Facebook and everywhere. We all have access to curious ears and eyes, and we need to use that.

Dr. Graham Walker:

Welcome to How I Doctor, where we're bringing joy back to medicine. Today I'm joined by Dr. Annie Andrews, pediatrician mom, public health advocate, and now a US Senate candidate taking on incumbent Lindsey Graham in South Carolina. You might know Dr. Andrews from social media where she speaks out on everything from gun violence to internal health to vaccines. Or you might remember her 2022 run for Congress where she built a grassroots campaign rooted in science, sanity and standing up for kids. I am so excited to talk to Dr. Andrews today because she's both exactly what you expect from a pediatrician and totally not. She's a fierce, unapologetic advocate for children's health, but she's also gritty and direct and not afraid to call out BS. She breaks the mold in a way that I think surprises you, especially if you think of pediatricians as always being soft-spoken or deferential. When she talks, you feel her values. You hear the clinician and the citizen, and you get the sense she's not running despite being a doctor, she's running because of it. Dr. Annie Andrews, welcome to How I Doctor. Thank you so much for being here.

AA:
Thank you so much, Graham. That was such a kind introduction.

GW:

Why a Pediatrician Chose to Run Against Lindsey Graham

Let's just start out talking about why you're running. You've spoken to everybody from Katie Couric to now me, most importantly. Why did your experience as a pediatrician drive you to take on Lindsey Graham and make you think, "Hey, this has to be me."?

AA:

I decided to be a doctor when I was four, and like so many of us very focused on that path, did everything I could in high school and undergrad to get into medical school. I decided to be a pediatrician the first day of my pediatrics clerkship in third year medical school. I loved working in a children's hospital. Spent about 15 years being a very traditional academic pediatric hospitalist. I have a master's degree in clinical research. I was a clinical hospitalist and a health services researcher. I was at one time a grant funded health services researcher studying asthma medication adherence in children with asthma, and really never in a million years thought that I would pivot into politics. But as I'm sure you are very aware, when you go to work every day at a children's hospital and you take care of kids who are hungry and don't know where their next meal is coming from, kids who are in the throes of a mental health crisis and can't access mental health resources, kids who have to spend the night in the hospital room alone because their parents are juggling multiple jobs just to make ends meet, kids with chronic diseases like asthma and diabetes whose parents aren't sure if they can afford their prescription medications and then children with bullet holes in them.
I went hospital room to hospital room for 15 years taking care of sick and injured children, and I started to look upstream to find the source of these children's problems. And as a South Carolinian, I looked to problem solvers in my state capital, didn't find very many folks fighting for kids there. I looked to Washington DC for problem solvers, fighting for America's children, didn't find too many people doing it there. I got really involved in advocacy and then in 2022, took the dramatic step and decided to run for Congress in South Carolina's first district against Nancy Mace. Didn't win, didn't go away. Got so much louder, so much more confident in my voice and in my place in this movement for America's children, and ultimately just a couple of months ago, decided to run for the US senate against Lindsey Graham.

GW:It's incredible. I think the common thread here, obviously with physician candidates is that we, like you said, every day we see the system not working, the system that's supposed to work, that's supposed to be there for helping people every day. And we see all the ways that it's like, gosh, this seems like this should have been preventable.

AA:

The Broken System Hurting Kids and Families

That's exactly right. And it became really clear to me it was broken policies coming out of Washington DC that were harming our kids and families long before they ever got to me at the children's hospital. And now that I've been entrenched in politics for a few election cycles, I understand that that's because Washington DC and state capitals are full of career corrupt politicians like Lindsey Graham who have completely abandoned their constituents and are standing by while we see ... And I'm sure we're going to talk a lot about this. This coordinated attack on our nation's healthcare system. And I know as a physician that my voice is so important in this moment, and I know that running for office is something that I can do. And so that's what I'm doing to solve the problems that we all see as physicians every day in our day-to-day work, whether it's in the outpatient setting or the hospital.

GW:It feels like every, I don't know, 10, 20 years Congress and the federal government passes some sweeping thing in healthcare that gets some things right and other things way wrong, and then it's ignored for 10 years. And in the other nine years, we doctors, nurses, pharmacists, social workers have to pick up the pieces and deal with all the broken system every single time.

AA:
That's exactly right. I had this moment. In between these two campaigns I was at an academic conference and I was listening to a trainee present their research project on how to identify social determinants of health through electronic health records. And I looked to my colleague next to me, I'm like, "Or we could just pass laws that help America." We're trying to build out of nothing, a social safety net that we should be able to rely on our federal government to help the most vulnerable members of our society, which sick and injured children are at the top of that list. And it just became so clear to me in that moment that those of us who work in hospital settings, our case managers, our social workers, the nurses, respiratory therapists, all of us were trying to work within this system that has not been built to help patients.

GW:It feels like every single time, whether it's research or protocols or policies, we're all trying to address the broken system with like, oh, well, there's this new policy, whatever. California now has a rule that we have to do XYZ and it's because the overarching system just doesn't address XYZ at all.

AA:

Why Band-Aid Solutions Aren’t Enough for Healthcare

That's right. It's band-aids. And we need systemic solutions. And to get the appropriate systemic solutions, we need people like you and I in these rooms where decisions are made.

GW:

Are there other pediatricians specifically in Congress?

AA:
Yes. Dr. Kim Schrier is the first pediatrician to ever serve in the US House of Representatives. She was first elected in that 2018 backlash election, which is important. She had a video go viral recently where she was questioning RFK Jr. about his anti-vax conspiracy theories. And it was just so incredibly powerful and so gratifying for me as a pediatrician to see her up there saying what needs to be said in the face of all of this anti-science rhetoric. And she's an incredible lawmaker. We've got to keep her in the house and hopefully someday she'll also run for senate.

GW:

The Viral Campaign Ad That Surprised America

Well, Annie, I knew about you from your 2022 campaign and then I rediscovered you from your own viral campaign launch video. You notably said that you know how to handle people who are full of or full of shit or full of bleep, I should say. Annie, I love that for a couple of reasons. One, most importantly, you got a medical joke into a political ad. Chef's kiss. That's hard to do to get an F.O.S x-ray of a kid with lots of stool on television and YouTube. Incredible. And then I got to say, I was surprised because it came from a pediatrician. What's the response been like to that video and your campaign?

AA:
Thank you for that. And I'm really, really proud of that video. I wrote it with my ad team.

GW:Love it.

AA:
I think that's one of the reasons it really broke through. In this moment we find ourselves in a nation where the national mood is so down in the dumps, we were able to make news and break through because people don't expect pediatricians to say what I said in that ad. But I have learned is people want authenticity. They want people to sound like real people. We can't pull punches right now. We've got to throw sharp elbows on behalf of America's children that this is a five alarm fire and we've got to do everything we can and playing by the rules, being polite, worrying about offending someone is not going to get the job done. I need more eyes and ears on me. And the way to do that is to just say what needs to be said.

I never in a million years thought we would reach the point in this country where a grifter and conspiracy theorist who's made himself very wealthy by peddling in anti-vaccine conspiracy theories while harming children in America and beyond, I never thought I'd see the day where he would be elevated to such a position. And those of us who work in healthcare understand that the damage has already been done. Even if he resigned today, it will take us decades to recover from the distrust that he is injecting into our nation's public health system. And as a pediatrician, I work in the hospital setting, but my outpatient colleagues are spending so much more time counseling concerned, well-meaning parents about the safety and efficacy of routine childhood immunizations, and that is his fault. That's something Dr. Kim Schrier said. She said, "Every child who dies from a vaccine preventable illness in the next coming years is RFK Jr.'s fault." And I stand by what she said there. So there's never been a more important time for all of us to find a way to lean in, to dial up our advocacy, to say what needs to be said. We don't all have to go run for US senate, but we all need to use our voices.

GW:

Balancing Bluntness and Credibility as a Physician Candidate

Annie, you're such a great communicator, and I wonder how you navigate that bluntness and that directness and that edge without diluting the doctor credibility piece. Because you're right. We have to be direct, but we also don't want to lose that sense that we are the expert in the room.

AA:
A lot of it is just I've found this inherent ability to do that. It doesn't necessarily have a lot of thought, but I have found ... I used humor a lot on social media and I used it in the launch video. Even though we are in a deeply serious moment, as you said at the top, we can't let them steal our joy or we'll forget what we're fighting for. But I actually have found, because I have the MD after my name, people know that I'm an intelligent person, and I think that actually gives me a little bit of leeway to be a little less serious sometimes because my credibility is inherent in the degrees in the position I have professionally.

GW:

The Double Standard for Female Physicians in Leadership

Do you get the sense that female physicians are held to a different standard in terms of communicating and being direct or being polite?

AA:
Yes. Absolutely. Female physicians are held to a different standard. Female candidates are held to a different standard. I've had this conversation with some of the political strategists that I work with that if I bring my kids to a campaign event, it's like, "What? She couldn't find childcare? Does she have time to run for office?"

GW:Oh, wow.

AA:
If a man brings their kids to a campaign event, it's like, "Oh my gosh."

GW:They're fatherly.

AA:
"Oh, that's amazing." And it's so true. And the same thing goes for my physical appearance. I have to think a lot about what I wear, what my hair looks like, but I have found that navigating academic medicine for 15 to 20 years has prepared me to navigate the political arena.

GW:I've never heard that before as an example, but I actually really like that. If you can navigate the complex cultural nuanced situation of a hospital system and get grant funding and do research and not get in trouble with the system, you actually probably know how to ... You've developed some skills that you can use in other avenues of life as well.

AA:
Yes. And I'll say this as well, we underestimate the communication skills that we develop as we go through our medical training and then practice medicine. Because if you think about what you do when you're rounding in the hospital as a hospitalist, I walk into a room, usually it's a patient I've never met. They could be anywhere from hours old to 21 years old. They're often there very sick or injured. The family's maybe their worst day of their lives, these parents I've never met, and I have trainees with me. So I'm walking in this room. I have to assess the developmental status of my patient and bond with them if they're old enough to do that. I have to develop trust with these parents in a matter of minutes. I have to use my medical knowledge to come up with a diagnosis and treatment plan, and then I have to communicate that to the family in a way that they can understand all while modeling for the learners that are with me. And that is an incredibly complex social interaction that doctors take for granted because we do it all day every day.

GW:Your description is very similar to what I have to do in the ER as well, except they usually want to hear from the pediatrician. Annie, we have found on our platform Offcall some trends that in emergency medicine, specifically female physicians are making slightly less money than male physicians despite controlling for all the factors that we are able to collect. Years of experience, hours worked, all of these other things. Have you found that to be true even in pediatrics, which certainly has more females in the profession than maybe other specialties?

AA:

Yes. And there is data to support that that same discrepancy exists even on the female-dominated fields such as pediatrics. I think another thing to think about is pediatricians as a whole are on the very low end of the scale of physician pay, and there's a lot of reasons for that, policy failure reasons for that. But it's also because it's a field that's full of women. That's one of the reasons I believe the pay is so low. It wasn't until my most recent job that I took after my last campaign, so in 2023 that I ever had a female boss. I worked at the same hospital system here in South Carolina for 15 years. My division director, my department chair, the hospital CEO, CMO, any chain of command I went up, it was male, male, male, male, male. And I didn't realize that. And those are all pediatricians. Why are all the leaders men? And now I have a female leader in my new job and I love it. There's just still so much gender inequity baked into the practice of medicine, but there's great people doing great work to study that problem and to address that problem from a systemic standpoint.

GW:

Physicians Must Master Social Media to Fight Misinformation

I want to talk with you a little bit about social media as a advocacy tool for physicians. It feels like physician trust is waning a bit right now, and I think that's because the system is so broken. If it takes whatever, nine months to get into a dermatologist, of course people are going to get annoyed and frustrated. Rightfully so. How do we message that physicians are working in a broken system when most people think that we're running the system, that we're in charge of it, that we chose to make it nine months because we're bad or inefficient or slow?

AA:
I think there's a lot of confusion about what physician incentive structures look like. All this rhetoric out there now about pediatricians just want your kid vaccinated because they make more money when your kid is-

GW:Yes. Oh, I've seen that one. I've seen that one so much.

AA:
Yes. There was just an excellent piece in the New York Times pushing back against that because we all know that's not true. This is one of what I see as the most urgent needs within healthcare right now is for physicians to learn how to effectively communicate on social media platforms specifically. There's a lot of shining stars out there who do this in their own way and do it very effectively. But far too many of us shy away from this. And I think it's because we're worried about patient privacy, we're worried about our employer getting upset. We don't feel like we have the time or the skills. Even though we know how to talk to individual patients effectively, we don't know how to speak to the social media audience. And I've just developed that skill over time and I've paid attention to what breaks through and what doesn't. It's a learnable skill. If you learn how to be a doctor, you can learn how to communicate on social media. But it's where everybody is.
If we're not on TikTok, then we're not talking to people. And it's our job to dispel these myths about what the healthcare system, how it functions. And until we do that, like you said, of course, patients are going to assume that we're in on it. That we have a provider-focused healthcare system. No. We have an insurance company and pharmaceutical company-focused healthcare system, not a patient-centered system, not a provider-centered system. We're just cogs in the wheel and we've got to make that known.

GW:

Building Trust While Fighting Anti-Science Narratives

It seems like that trust piece and that expertise piece, they're pretty linked. That we need to bump the trust back up so that we can say, "Hey, cutting NIH funding for dementia, ALS cancer research is really bad."

AA:
Yes. And I think we underestimate ... The trust has been eroded. But pediatricians specifically are still one of the most trusted professions in the country, and that data is clear. So we have to remember that the distrust right now, it's a vocal minority, and this is our moment to push back and fight back everything coming out of RFK Junior's mouth. And if we don't act now, then the distrust is going to continue to grow exponentially. But we're still in a moment where most people trust physicians. Most people trust their own doctor, and we need to use that and leverage that to gain back the more global trust in our profession.

GW:Have you found anything that is particularly effective at either dispelling misinformation or addressing whatever it is, vaccine hesitancy or people not believing that gun violence is the number one killer of children now?

AA:

Yes. I often say to be an effective advocate, you need to be persistent to the point of wondering if you are obnoxious. That's the truth. And that's how I got started in gun violence prevention advocacy. I talked about secure firearm storage and gun locks every day, all day on social media and at my job at the hospital, and I just became like the gun lock girl. And that's how you break through and that's how you establish yourself as an expert in something. So we have to do that. And we also have to take ourselves less seriously. And that sounds counterintuitive when we're trying to show our expertise. We're so buttoned up all the time. Social media is not grand rounds. It's not time to talk about charts and P-values. It's time to use a mix of stories. You got to get a hook in your video to get people to stay watching. Use real stories. Let your passion and your emotions show through. Be a real person. We all are experts. We need to take what we see at the bedside of our sick and injured patients and share it with the world while maintaining patient privacy. But if we don't do that, we're doing a disservice to our patients and their families.

GW:There's so much misinformation online and it feels to me like physicians are appropriately held to a different standard. We would be decimated if we were hawking supplements or saying that you shouldn't get the vitamin K shot. You should do some other crazy thing for your newborn because we have a medical license after our name. But other people are not held to that same standard and they don't have to disclose that they are making a bunch of money from selling supplements or something like that. I wonder if there is some way that we can turn what feels like a weakness into a strength in some way. How do we combat all of these people that are making profit off of hawking their supplements or their outfits or their water bottles when people would be disgusted if you or me were to do that?

AA:

Turning Medical Expertise into Social Media Credibility

I think we've found ourselves in this position where many people who are on TikTok, they're watching some account of some mom who's pushing anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and they hear what she has to say about why she doesn't trust vaccines, and then they scroll to a video from me and they hear what I have to say, and they equally weigh those two they consider to be opinion.

GW:Those two equal perspectives. Yeah.

AA:
And we've got to get out of that. Because my opinion is not an opinion, it's a evidence-based recommendation. But we can't do it in this ivory tower. I'm right because I'm doctor way. I think back to our conversation about gender inequalities in medicine, females I think especially feel really uncomfortable leaning into their expertise or even qualifying themselves. I made a video about this because I was so frustrated by people saying I didn't know what I was talking about when I was talking about asthma medication access and kids on Medicaid. I'm like, I literally was a grant-funded researcher studying this. I've published a hundred peer-reviewed papers. I'm an actual expert. I hesitated to post that video because I felt like I was bragging about my credentials and I got some feedback that's like, "You're so full of yourself." It's like, no, I'm just trying to establish myself as an expert. So it is a tough needle to thread, and we're not going to figure it out until we just start trying things and see what works.

GW:It always feels weird to me because I think you and I probably completely agree on RFK Jr. as Secretary of HHS. It always feels strange to me because the two things that he'll say that do resonate with me are A prevention and B, change. That there are problems with our healthcare system. But to me it always just feels like ... It's so irritating. Because we need change and we want prevention, but it just feels like the ways that he's trying to approach them are so harebrained and don't make any sense to me as a doctor. And you would think that we are the ones that should have a general sense of like, well, oh, the person was shot. How could we prevent that? The person had diabetic ketoacidosis. How could we prevent that? You would ask the people who see it to make those decisions.

AA:

RFK Jr. and the Dangerous Spread of Misinformation

That's right. RFK Jr. recently said his goal is to have everybody in America wearing a wearable within a few years because our patients who don't know where their next meal is coming from and can't afford an albuterol inhaler needs a ring to tell them how much they're sleeping at night. He's so detached from reality. But you're right. We know the solutions we have to get ourselves in the rooms and the room right now is Instagram and TikTok and Facebook and everywhere. We all have access to curious ears and eyes, and we need to use that. What worries me so much is he's laundering the anti-vaccine movement in this broader movement that really on paper, you and I agree with much of it. Like you said-

GW:The concepts are actually correct.

AA:
Exactly. But it's so insidious what he doing because he's laundering all this nonsense and really dangerous anti-science stuff in with this global idea that we should all try to be healthier and prevent disease. Well, you don't prevent disease by kicking millions of American children off of their healthcare. You don't prevent disease by raising the cost of prescription drugs. You don't prevent disease by blocking access to routine, safe and effective childhood immunization. So he talks out of both sides of his mouth. He has no idea what he's doing. I will celebrate the day a reporter asked that man what a P-value is because here he is diverting research funds at the NIH to study an already answered scientific question of whether or not vaccines cause autism, which they don't and because he doesn't even understand basic principles. It's so dangerous and it's going to take all of us to push ourselves outside of our comfort zone to fight back against this crazy level of misinformation and disinformation coming from the highest levels of our federal government.

GW:

Why More Physicians Must Run for Office

I'm just imagining from our conversation, what would TikTok or Instagram or social media look like if all one million American physicians were posting even just once a week. Just telling a story from clinic about whatever. They got kicked off their Medicaid coverage or they couldn't afford this, and so look at what I had to do next week. What a difference that would make if our physicians were scrolling and talking. Annie, we've talked to several other physician politicians and people running for office Dr. Tina Shah is an intensivist. She's running in New Jersey. How can physicians whether they want to run for office or local office, how can physicians become as well-spoken about these topics as you are?

AA:
Thank you. It really just comes from doing it.

GW:Get an account and start posting.

AA:
Yes. Yes. When I was first running for office, I was a terrible public speak. Maybe not terrible. I could give a grand rounds that kept half the audience awake. I was not confident in public speaking. I would stand up there with incredibly awkward body language, sweaty palms, heart racing. And in my head, I'm just going through my note cards, okay, what paragraph comes next? Put in the reps do the practice and just start doing it because we are all effective communicators if we are successfully practicing medicine. We know how to think on our feet. We do it all day every day in our jobs. A really specific thing that people who are ... If there's a healthcare provider listening who has any little itch that they might want to run for office someday, please lean into that. Please explore that. You can DM me.
There's an incredible organization called 3.14 as in PI, run by Shaughnessy Naughton, who's a woman who ran for Congress and then started this organization specifically to support candidates with STEM backgrounds who want to run for office. They're very involved in my campaign right now. They have the whole mission to elect a lot of doctors in 2026. So any doctor who approaches me who says, "I might want to run for office," no matter what level of office you're considering running for, I send them to 3.14 because 3.14 gets it. They understand why this is the moment where we need more physicians to be on the ballot for every race at all levels.

GW:

What Politicians Would Learn Shadowing Doctors

If Lindsey Graham had to shadow you in clinic or in the hospital for one day, what do you think would surprise him most?

AA:
Great question. Wow. Everything.

GW:Yeah. It's probably hard to pick one.

AA:
Everyone who serves in the US Senate should ... I don't want these people in our children's hospitals, but I wish there was a requirement that they spend a day a quarter in a children's hospital and a day a quarter in a public school, and then they would get it. They would see the harm that their policies are inflicting. I think that the number one lesson, the thing that would surprise him is that these families on Medicaid are not lazy. They're not trying to feed off of the government. They're not trying to get a handout. They're trying to help their children. They're doing their very best, and they deserve our respect. They deserve to maintain a sense of dignity as they're navigating these incredibly hard days and the last thing we need to be doing is ripping out the carpet from underneath them.

GW:I've long thought that politicians, whoever wants to come shadow me in the ER let's do a day shift. I'm not even going to ask you to come in on the overnight. Come in on a weekend or come in on a post-holiday Tuesday or something like that. See what everybody's dealing with and all the incredible people who are showing up to try to help other people who need help as well.

AA:
That's exactly right. That's exactly right.

GW:Dr. Annie Andrews, thank you so much for being here. We are seeing physicians starting to speak out more and more. Elizabeth Potter is a breast surgeon in Austin who's speaking out about prior authorizations. You are speaking out about vaccines and measles and gun violence. And I think it's critical that we start to have these conversations. I just want to thank you for representing our voice so well and honestly modeling how to do this well and how to talk at a level that allows people to listen and not feel judged when I think many times patients feel very judged by the medical system, and that probably comes from physicians as well.

AA:
Yeah. Well, this was a lovely conversation. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for caring enough to have this conversation and using your platform to further the work on fixing our healthcare system.

GW:Thank you. Best of luck in the primary.

AA:
Thank you.

GW:Thanks for joining me today. For interviews with physicians creating meaningful change check out offcall.com/podcast. You can find How I Doctor on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. We'll have new episodes weekly. This has been and continues to be Dr. Graham Walker. Stay well, stay inspired and practice with purpose.