The profession of medicine is one of the most highly-regulated industries in the country. While we can advocate for emergency physicians through our professional organizations, several emergency physicians have taken it upon themselves to enter the political arena. Here, we profile the emergency physicians running for Congress in the 2022 cycle as they answer questions posed by ACEP Now.

Representative Raul Ruiz, MD

Twitter: @repraulruizmd

What do you think emergency physicians need to be paying attention to in Congress?

Dr. Ruiz: One is the reversal of Roe v. Wade. And why is that important? It’s important because in many states you’ll start to see the criminalization of medical practices. In some states and in Congress already there have been attempts to be able to imprison OB/GYN physicians or fine them extraordinary amount of monies or bar them from practicing with their license for a medical procedure, whether it’s done for an emergency or for other reasons. Some bills that the Republicans try to pass through the House would also deputize technicians, nurses, and anybody that works in a clinic or hospital to bring charges up against physicians. Now that’s very concerning.

What do you think we should be doing about medical school debt in this country?

Dr. Ruiz: Obviously, the cost of a medical school has gone extremely high. So, we need to figure out a way where we can reduce those costs. Also, there’s a lot of loan to scholarship opportunities that we need to create in order for individuals who may initially take out a loan to pay for their medical school.

And if they fulfill certain requirements, whether practicing in a medically underserved area or whether their practice serves over 60% Medicare and Medicaid patients, or whether they actually take on certain community service hours in their practice, or sign into some kind of program with a government that focuses on equity, then those loans can be converted into scholarships and there would be no need to pay them back.

How can we improve our approach to future pandemics and public health threats?

Dr. Ruiz: One of the factors that we need to improve is the ability for the CDC to collect data so that they can in real time, through either surveillance, through emergency department or hospital or state public health department reporting be able to act on that data much quicker and make better targeted decisions in terms of the precautions that are necessary. Right now, it’s a hodgepodge. They have to join into over 200 data use agreements with counties [and] with states. Some entire states don’t even report data. Some states leave it for their individual counties to form these data use agreements. And then some states do it as a state entity.