Proactively Confronting the Pandemic

The Minnesota Medical Association stepped up to encourage Minnesotans to #PracticeGoodHealth amidst COVID-19 challenges.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when many of us were sequestered at home, the more than 12,000 physician, resident, and medical student members of the Minnesota Medical Association were out doing what they do best: caring for their patients in a variety of different types of practices and specialties. As essential workers on the front lines facing an unknown virus, they rallied together to provide care and accurate information when Minnesotans needed it most.

Its members’ proactive response to the pandemic didn’t surprise the MMA. Founded in 1853 – five years before Minnesota even became a state – the organization has witnessed physicians in action for the past 168 years. When the threat of COVID-19 arrived in the state, there was an extreme amount of confusion, misinformation, and, unfortunately, politicalization around the virus and the state and national response. The MMA responded by launching the “Practice Good Health” campaign in June 2020.

With an expert lens and practical advice, the MMA campaign encouraged Minnesotans to wear masks, social distance, wash hands, visit the doctor when needed, and, eventually, to get vaccinated. The campaign sought to transparently communicate how the whole community could work together to keep each other safe and healthy. It reminded Minnesotans that despite the pandemic, routing preventive care and management of chronic diseases should not be ignored.

“What was most amazing to see from this campaign was that even when physicians were at their busiest, we asked them to help promote the campaign and they rose to the challenge,” said Dan Hauser, MMA’s Director of Communications, Education and Events.

As the pandemic response evolved from precautionary to proactive, physicians sent in pictures and videos about effective ways to fight the COVID-19 virus that were then posted on the MMA’s website and social media accounts. Cell phone videos of doctors receiving COVID-19 vaccines were passed along to MMA to be edited and shared with the hashtag #PracticeGoodHealth. Through it all, the MMA helped amplify its passionate physician member voices to let the rest of Minnesota know about effective ways to combat the COVID-19 virus.

When vaccines started to roll out in spring 2021, the MMA, through its foundation, partnered with the Minnesota Department of Health to recruit volunteer physicians to staff vaccine buses that delivered doses to residents in communities that may not have otherwise had access to them. These kinds of volunteer efforts have helped the state to emerge as a national leader in response to the pandemic.

“Even though our doctors were overwhelmed, they went above and beyond to promote ‘Practice Good Health’ to people throughout the state,” Hauser said. “Doctors take care of their fellow humans, and when confronted with the new COVID-19 virus, they partnered with the MMA to help the entire state.”

In addition to COVID-19, the MMA has also been battling another pandemic that has plagued the country for centuries: structural racism.

After the killing of George Floyd in May 2020 and the global reckoning about race that it sparked, the MMA began to examine its own long history to understand its role and contributions to discrimination and racism. Sifting through more than 100 years of articles in its journal, Minnesota Medicine, through board and House of Delegate actions, and other historical archives, the MMA is inventorying its past to learn from it and position itself as an anti-racist organization into the future.

In addition to looking at the past, the MMA is also looking to support its membership in their day-to-day interactions with patients. With generous funding from UCare, the MMA is developing educational resources and supports to address the role that physician and other clinician implicit biases play in patient care and outcomes.

“We want to be an association that actively works to improve health equity and are excited about the work that is underway, knowing there is so much more to do,” explained Hauser. “It has been extremely gratifying to see the commitment of physicians to health equity and they are appropriately pushing the MMA to keep at it.”

It’s another instance of MMA’s physician, resident, and medical student members rising to the challenge, rolling up their sleeves, and doing the hard work needed to make Minnesota’s communities better for everyone.

To learn more about the MMA and its efforts to #PracticeGoodHealth and fight structural racism, visit www.mnmed.org.