Scope of practice, the physician workforce, and preventive health have all come into play in the 2025 Texas legislative session, prompting the state’s medical students to join the Texas Medical Association in advocacy – and in droves – on April 1.
While these issues don’t always make it into curriculum, they have a serious impact on students’ futures, and TMA’s First Tuesdays at the Capitol advocacy events are a prime way to learn and act, says Matthew Darmadi, a first-year medical student at Baylor College of Medicine.
First Tuesdays at the Capitol is TMA’s signature advocacy event, held on the first Tuesday of each month when the Texas Legislature is in session. During the event, physicians and their allies lay the groundwork for or build on existing relationships with legislators by communicating their experiences and concerns firsthand and connecting them to TMA’s legislative priorities.
“There are a lot of policies that I had never heard of, like scope-of-practice bills,” Mr. Darmadi said. “It’s good to know now, before entering the workforce.”
Medical student participation April 1 made for a record-setting event, with around 300 in attendance. Participants filled TMA’s Thompson Auditorium for the event’s morning briefing and spilled into overflow rooms to hear from TMA President G. Ray Callas, MD, the association’s lobby team, and Rep. Suleman Lalani, MD (D-Sugar Land).
Representative Lalani thanked attendees for their commitment to making positive change in medicine and finding creative solutions for Texas’ health care issues. That includes TMA’s support for a budget rider carried by Representative Lalani that funds primary care physician preceptors.
“Advocacy is not a one-time job,” he said. “We have two options: cry and complain or get organized.”
Organized medicine received more special acknowledgment from Representative Lalani in the House of Representatives later in the morning, as the House took on its first legislative hearings.
“These individuals have been walking in the halls of the Capitol, advocating for issues that impact the medical community, but also all Texans across the state,” Representative Lalani said from the House floor. “These physicians are on the frontlines of medicine, and their voice is critical in shaping the policies that affect public health, medical education, and access to care.”
Rep. Terri Leo Wilson (R-Galveston) also recognized the dozens of University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston students who had traveled for advocacy.
As they met with legislators’ offices, TMA physicians, alliance members, and medical students emphasized physician workforce measures to improve the health of all Texans. For instance, funding for residency programs to surpass the standard ratio of 1:1.1 medical students to residency spots keeps medical students in Texas while maintaining pace with the growing state population, Mr. Darmadi says.
Similarly, Emily Irikannu, a first-year medical student at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth, told legislators of her success as part of the Joint Admission Medical Program (JAMP), an undergraduate pipeline program that supports economically disadvantaged students.
Ms. Irikannu called JAMP “a godsend for getting underserved or socioeconomically disadvantaged students into medical school,” and joined medical students setting out from Houston at 5 a.m. to voice her support for it. “Anything I can do to advocate for it going on, continuing to help future students, I’ll really show up for that.”
The majority of legislators lack medical education, TMA Chief Lobbyist Clayton Stewart reminded medical students personally after the morning’s briefing. On issues like immunization and women’s health, students and physicians stepped in to fill the gap with their expertise.
“It’s important to have physician voices when these laws are being made, just so that there’s our insight there,” said Naomi Siddique, a second-year medical student at the University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School. “It’s really cool to see doctors in white coats advocating for health policy, because who writes the rules matters.”
Ms. Siddique was one of many first-time advocates for medicine, along with Juan Paulo Gonzales, a first-year medical student at McGovern Medical School.
“A lot of the time I feel like I read something from a book or read an article from my medical school and it makes sense, but then I realize 90% of the population probably never had exposure to this type of information,” he said. “I kind of want to help spread that knowledge because, at least in this day and age, the digital age, where there’s a lot of misinformation, it’s easy to get caught up in a lot of sentiments that aren’t exactly true.”
This session’s final First Tuesdays at the Capitol is scheduled for May 6. A special hotel room rate is available for bookings on the Monday before FTAC. For more information and to sign up, visit TMA’s First Tuesdays webpage.
If you’re unable to attend in person, keep an eye on Texas Medicine Today for registration details for the virtual legislative briefing, at which attendees earn CME, held each Monday before the event.
Texas Medicine Today staff contributed to this article.