You Can Be The Endocrine Society’s Best Advocates
As we near the end of the year, much work is left to be done on Capitol Hill. Members of Congress continue to debate important budget issues, and physician payment cuts loom unless Congress takes action. The Endocrine Society continues to engage with your senators and representatives on your behalf, but the best tool in our armamentarium is you. Although professional organizations such as the Society are an important voice to educate members of Congress, policymakers need to hear from their constituents that they must act on these issues.
The Society has developed an advocacy toolkit that provides our members with resources to help them advocate for themselves. These tools are as simple as sending a pre-written letter to your representative, attending a “Town Hall Meeting” hosted by your member of Congress, or submitting a letterto-the-editor in your local paper. The Society’s staff of experienced government affairs professionals is ready and eager to make your engagement in advocacy as easy as possible. I’ve used the tools that have been created for us, and they are fantastic, fast, easy, direct, and I’ve received notes back from my congressmen, so they are eff ective!
Since the Society launched the National Institutes of Health advocacy toolkit in August, our members have sent hundreds of letters to Capitol Hill and have shared numerous stories about the impact of declining research budgets with the media. If you have participated in this advocacy campaign, or any other campaign supported by the Society, thank you! But unfortunately, your work is not done as Congress is still grappling with these issues, so I urge you to become further engaged by visiting www. endocrine.org/congress to learn about additional advocacy action steps. If you have not yet gotten involved in the Society’s advocacy efforts, there is still time and I urge you to join us by visiting www.endocrine.org/toolkit. Your efforts will have a tremendous impact in support of the Society’s efforts and for endocrinologists.
The Society has a core group of members who have dedicated themselves to supporting the Society’s advocacy work, which includes the members of the Society’s Advocacy and Public Outreach Core Committee (APOCC). Committee members visited Capitol Hill on the eve of the government shutdown (below left) to urge policymakers to protect the National Institutes of Health from additional budget cuts and to identify a balanced approach to defi cit reduction, and to replace the Medicare payment formula with a new payment model and stable payments for fi ve years. I also had the opportunity to carry these messages during a visit to Washington, D.C., in November, and was able to see fi rst-hand the impact that our work is having on Capitol Hill. I encourage everyone to engage with their representatives so that you too can appreciate your infl uence. You can make a diff erence to your fi eld, your laboratory, the next generation of scientists and practitioners, and your patients.
Please share your comments,
questions, and ideas by writing to me
via [email protected].
Teresa K. Woodruff , PhD
President, The Endocrine Society
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