Speak Up, America! Health Care Is Our Right!

For more information contact:
Josh Rising
Legislative Affairs Director
1902 Association Dr.
Reston, VA 20191
(703) 620-6600 x211

While the idea of putting together a candlelight vigil may be daunting, other medical students have put together very successful events. There is no reason why you can't too! Read on to hear about how some other organizers put together their events.

Chicago - November 1999

This was AMSA's first candlelight vigil, and it was held during the American Public Health Association conference in Chicago, right outside Cook County Hospital. It was held the same weekend as an AMSA regional conference, which made it much easier to get people there. Nearly 200 medical students, physicians, and members of the community attended. Speakers included Congressman Danny Davis (D-IL), Dr. Quentin Young, Past President of the American Public Health Association, and National Coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program, Dr. Deborah Richter, President of Physicians for a National Health Program, and David Grande, President of the American Medical Student Association. A folk singer, Mina Bromberg, provided musical accompaniment. Two television stations came and covered the event. The event was a success, and participants left feeling energized and ready to help move the struggle for universal health care forward.

Houston - March 2000

The Houston Candlelight Vigil for the Uninsured took place on March 29th, 2000, outside of the emergency room of Ben Taub Hospital. Since this hospital represents the only source of medical care for many of the poor and uninsured citizens of Houston, we though it would be apropos to highlight the important role the ERs play in providing stop-gap measures to improve
the health of the uninsured.

We chose several speakers that each touched this topic in a different way. Dr. Arthur Garson, a Vice President of Baylor College of Medicine, spoke about medical student activism. Sometimes, it is difficult to associate the revered academic physicians of a medical school to those physicians who actively support single payer, universal health insurance. Dr. Garson assured the students that universal health care is a realistic and necessary goal to strive toward during our careers. Dr. David Buck, the sponsor of our student run clinic for the homeless, spoke about dealing with the consequences of uninsurance and its devastating effects in the homeless population. A local representative to the state legislature, Garnet Coleman, addressed the issue of financing public hospitals and improving access to care.

The most moving speaker of the evening was medical student Lisa Kopas. Lisa told her personal story of being uninsured while taking care of two young children during college. She reminded the medical, premedical, and high school students present that the face of the uninsured in America is far from the stereotype.

Boston - May 2000

The Boston event occurred at the Massachusetts State House, chosen to symbolize how the MA legislature had ignored the problem of the uninsured. Med students from BU, Tufts and Harvard met regularly to plan the event. One of the most successful parts of the event was the coalition that was formed. The Mass Nurses Association, the Coalition to Defend Health Care (formed to promote a ballot initiative going on in MA at that time) and MASSCARE (a grassroots organization) were all in on the planning for the event.

Because the event was at the state house, we had to get a permit (free!) ahead of time. The state police were worried about wax dripping on the side walk, but the dixie cups around the candles helped out with that. A rented sound system was set up on the steps, and the vigil was off. Speakers included students from all of the medical schools involved, the coalition partners and the director of MA Health Care for All. After the speakers talked, the vigilers marched around the State House before a benediction by a local minister.

We would have liked to have had some signs to carry with us during the march, as people that we passed wondered why we were marching. Another key to success was delegating responsibilities among all of the students involved.

New York - October 2000

On October 18th, over 100 medical students from the New York City area gathered with physicians, citizen advocacy groups and professionals from the arenas of mental, public and allied health, at New York University Medical Center. The vigil was organized by Mitesh Desai from NYU and Lori Choi from SUNY-Brooklyn. Among the speakers were NY Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, who authored state's Child Health Plus legislation, Timothy Sullivan of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), and Marianne Jackson for Rescue Health Care - NYC.

The NY event focused on the role of students in the movement for universal access, and the microphone was handed off again and again to student representatives of myriad organizations endorsing the Vigil - Student National Medical Association, National Association of Social Workers, Students for Social Responsibility, Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual People in Medicine, American Medical Women's Association and others.

The student calls to action were punctuated by words from more experienced activists: Public Health Association of NYC, Children's Defense Fund, and Citizen Action Group. The great benefit of being the Vigil organizer is just this...you have a rare view, from above, of just how many groups are committed to making this proposal a reality, and just how powerful our collective potential really is. I can not emphasize enough how clearly this project demonstrated to me that AMSA brings new energy and promise to the push for universal access. Our presence alone served to invigorate individuals who have been in this fight for years; just think what our active participation, leadership and vision will offer to this movement! To paraphrase Mark Hannay: Let us organize the disorganized, and mobilize the organized.

There were several components, I think, to our success. First, we were two schools, and as SUNY-Brooklyn hit exam period, NYU picked up the charge. Second, the experience and connections of the experienced outside organizations were invaluable to us in terms of planning, logistical details, press contacts, and drawing in more groups like the social workers, nurses, labor unions, mental health care practitioners. Third, we abused the he** out of the AMSA national office. We demanded their input in planning, their press release-writing skills, their press contacts, their rapport with the other local chapters, and finally, their presence (Sindhu was one of our featured speakers). Last, we met regularly every 2 weeks (about thrice over a 6-week period), to keep us on the same page and keep the momentum and the spirits up. Every vigil needs at least one overseer to do some follow-up to make sure everyone is following through with their delegated responsibilities, which include:

1) Logistics

2) In-house publicity: emailing all classes, going to other student events to make announcements, posting flyers, alerting the institution's press office, involving key professors, reaching out to your classmates in different student organizations and asking for their endorsement.

3) Local support from other schools involved was critical. We had Melissa Brosanders from Cornell pulling a lot of work on networking and publicity and in turn, a good population of Cornell students turned out. Also, I spoke personally to a couple of pre-med chapters and they also turned out in numbers. As much as possible, once a lot of the road has been laid down, it's a good idea to get as many chapters involved as possible, so they have a vested interest in having a strong showing. Kaye Hale from SUNY-Brooklyn contacted all the officers personally and snail-mailed and e-mailed flyers to them. Also, we were in touch with active PNHP student members. Two other ways to get other participation were creating a list of 30-sec speakers, which included all the AMSA chapters and other organizations endorsing the vigil, and asking chapter officers to contact EVERY student organization at their school and ask them to endorse the vigil. These were listed on the back of the vigil program. Finally, we encouraged the chapters to have forums or speakers on the subject of Universal Access to Health Care in the weeks prior to the vigil. PNHP is GREAT resource for speakers.

4) Reach out to allied health professional schools: Public Health, Nursing, Social Work, etc.

5) Network with advocacy groups for community health, elderly, children, citizen's advocacy, labor unions, gay men's health crisis, women's health. Ask them to endorse the vigil, or even speak or co-sponsor the event.

6) Speakers: LIMIT THE NUMBER, LIMIT THE LENGTH OF THE TALK. (AND BE A FASCIST AND ENFORCE THIS AT THE VIGIL). Once you decide on who to invite, you can write a press release listing those as invited. Our list of speakers was so fluid that we did not print any names on the flyer. The info about speakers can be included in the media advisory and last-minute emails.

7) PRESS: See above, where I suggest exploiting the national office. Also, use all of your co-sponsors' press lists to maximize the possibility of coverage, especially in major metropolitan areas. Write your press release, send it out, follow up with phone calls the day of the vigil, pray.

8) And lastly, pat yourself on the back. Doing a candlelight vigil can be a lot of work, but it is well worth it. It is a great learning experience in organization and teamwork; it is heartening to see that you have made a small difference by making people aware of an important issue; and it is more fun than pathology!

Dallas - October 2000

The candlelight vigil occurring on October 29th in Fort Worth, Texas was a great success on account of "the quality rather than the quantity of people" that attended (quote from one of our speakers). Two speakers shared their thoughts with the group: Dr. Gerry Frankel (on behalf of Physicians for a National Health Program) and Karen Elenich (representing Nader 2000). A third scheduled speaker, Mike Herrera (politician and representative of the "Hispanic community") failed to make an appearance. The small size of the group allowed the speakers to engage the participants on an informal and personal level, and after the candles were blown out everyone mingled and exchanged information and phone numbers for about half an hour. The participants were primarily medical students from UT Southwestern and TCOM as well as members of the Green Party. The connections forged between the students from the two schools and the Green Party promise to result in future activist events in the area.

Difficulties in planning the vigil fell mostly along the lines of distance and publicity. The more people involved and excited about the event, the better...but you have to make do with what you have. Ideally, there would be someone from every class in each of the schools involved in the vigil who is interested in and committed to the issue and the event. Advertising to medical students can be difficult: many do not check their e-mail and many do not pay attention to postings on bulletin boards on campus. Therefore, the more people involved who can personally invite (and coerce) others to attend, the more widespread knowledge of the vigil will be. It is essential to connect personally with other organizations in the area who consider the issue timely and crucial... "coalition building is critical." ...but hard to do. Perhaps if one person is in charge of making connections with other groups in the area, maybe a first or second year student with a flexible schedule who can actually personally meet with other people. Okay, so this has been a roundabout way of saying, the more people involved, the better.

Philadelphia - October 2000

Our vigil was another AMSA success in bringing people together to focus on Universal Health Care. This October event was coordinated with residents and medical students from hospitals and medical schools from all over the city of Philadelphia. Speakers included the City Health Commissioner, representatives from the Ad Hoc Committee to Defend Health Care and Physicians for Social Responsibility and Sindhu Srinivas, AMSA's National President. Congressman Chaka Fattah had accepted an invitation to speak but was unable to attend since Congress was unexpectedly in session that evening.

The event was a great success except that there was a critical sound system glitch. The event was definitely still a success but the lesson learned was to test the sounds system in advance (even if you rent a nice one). The other key element for PR is to make sure TV stations and papers are called early in the morning the day of the event as follow-up to a press release sent out 1-2 days prior.

Berkeley, CA - October 2000

I just wanted to tell everyone about the Candlelight Vigil that we held in Berkeley, California. The UC Berkeley Pre-Medical AMSA chapter organized the event, which drew over 200 attendees. The crowd included a mix of undergraduate students, medical students, physicians, and community members. Speakers represented organizations such as: Physicians for a National Health Program, LifeLong Medical Clinic, Health Care for All, Vote Health, SEIU Local 250, the Mayor's Task Force on the Uninsured, and the Physicians Organizing Committee. There were reporters from local newspapers and a news crew from a local television station to cover the event.

We received VERY positive feedback from all who attended, and I think it was a big success. The organizations that were represented told me that they received numerous signatures on their various petitions and sign up sheets, and hopefully it encouraged at least a couple people to be more active in the fight for universal health care. I would highly recommend this event as a way for your chapter to educate your classmates and community about the state of our health care system, and to encourage them to take a more active role to improve this system.

Baltimore, MD - October 2000

The vigil in Baltimore was part of the region 123 AMSA conference held at University of Maryland. The theme of the conference was "Health Care for All"

The logistics for the vigil planning was as follows: I started to plan the vigil about two months in advance… because we had the vigil in the center of Baltimore, I had to get a permit (this cost about $35). That was the only time sensitive thing that we really had to worry about. We had the vigil in a park so we did not have to have streets blocked off (more expense) and did not have to hire a police person. The one problem with the site was that there was not available electricity to use. We ended up using a battery operated podium with speakers that worked out fine given the space we had. (We rented this from a party supply/wedding supply rental store and it cost about $85). I wanted to have a folk singer to sing before the vigil started, but that was going to be pretty expensive, would have required a better speaker system (more money!) and was kinda hard to arrange. So, we settled for a portable CD player and some sixties music (the Forrest Gump Soundtrack!). It was fine and appropriate and I'm glad we didn't spend the extra money, to be honest.

Another logistical thing that had to be arranged was to buy candles. We got them from a Christian Supply store…the cost was about $35 for a box of 250. We used Dixie cups with a hole poked through the bottom to stick the candle up into to collect the wax and to prevent the candles from going out if it was windy. Plus, they kinda looked like lanterns when they were lit. We had some signs from the last convention (Speak Up America! Health Care is A Right) that people held. Lastly, we held the AMSA banner behind the podium along with banners from the Maryland Health Care for All Campaign. That made a nice backdrop for the media and also kept the sound from the speakers from going all over the place! With the help of Tim Clarke, AMSA's Director of Public Relations, we put out a press announcement to the local media in Baltimore. (Which worked! We were on the local news!)

Once the space was established, I had to come up with speakers and things to do during the event. Because the vigil occurred during the AMSA regional conference, we were guaranteed some measure of attendance. The speakers were pretty cool and the tone was somewhat between a vigil and a rally. I was the emcee, and made a short speech at the beginning as a representative from Maryland (we were tying the vigil into the Maryland Universal Health Care Initiative…I then had the responsibility to introduce the speakers. The people who spoke were: Jaya Agrawal, AMSA National VP, Vinny DeMarco - executive director of the Maryland Health Care Initiative. A poet then read a poem she composed about healthcare, and then a woman who had worked in Massachusetts on the state initiative there. An uninsured patient spoke about what it was like to be without health insurance and she then led us in a song, that was really moving. The final speaker was a physician from Maryland who gave the perspective of an MD. I ended the program by having about 30 seconds of silence for the uninsured and then ended with a few closing remarks.

The whole event lasted about 45 minutes. That was just the right length-it was kinda cold! Some final pointers are to have students bring their white coats…it looks better! I am glad we were in a visible location in the city-it looked really cool and gave a nice picture for the news.

All in all, it was a moderate amount of work, but I think it was worth every second. Having the press there was icing on the cake, but even without that, seeing my peers be passionate about something that I firmly believe was awesome. I'm still riding high from the experience!