Our Experiences Fuel Our Voices

Brent K. Sugimoto,, MD, MPH, AAHIVS, FAAFP editorial

I remember my maternal grandmother describing it plainly, in a matter-of-fact way, as if describing the horrible traffic on the way home from work. They found out they were being interned. In a matter of weeks, they were evacuated to live in the horse stables of the Santa Anita Racetrack until they could be relocated to the permanent camp in Manzanar. She said the family was lucky because they had White neighbors who were willing to store their belongings while they were in prison: most Japanese-Americans had only the allowed two suitcases to pack up their world and had to sell the rest of their possessions for pennies on the dollar. My mom’s dad, newly admitted to Stanford University for medical school, had to forever relinquish his dream of becoming a physician. On my father’s side, his grandfather—ineligible to ever become a U.S. citizen because he was a Japanese national—had to give up his strawberry farm (according to family lore, he grew strawberries the size of one’s fist) on what is now prime real estate: Palos Verdes.

The imprint of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 on my family and community—which ordered the World War II internment of Japanese-Americans— was to me a lesson in how the world worked. It taught me how powerful and frightening a force discrimination could be for upending lives, and about the experience of powerlessness. It taught me that success or failure often lay outside of one’s own control.

I also consider it a gift.

Without it I don’t think I would ever be as attuned to right from wrong, to fair from unjust. It has left in my soul a groove, the borders of which delimit a satisfactory and comfortable and compulsory path where meaningful work means helping others find those two freedoms of the four, ironically, articulated by Roosevelt himself: freedom from want and freedom from fear. Ethnographer and TED Talk speaker Simon Sinek would call this my WHY.

The question of our WHY is an important one. It motivates self to action and forms the resonance of our own voice, which with its authenticity, is the force that moves others to our vision. The story behind my own WHY is unique, but I have learned that the shape of that WHY is not so unfamiliar from the many family physicians that I admire. It a large reason why I am so proud to be a family physician: in our position of privilege and, yes, power, we so often use our voice in the service of others.

This issue is dedicated to the Voice of Family Medicine. Here you will read the stories of some pretty amazing leaders, from family physicians to CAFP CEO Ms. Lisa Folberg. Each found their voice to become leaders and advocates in our specialty, in their respective organizations, in social media, in government, and in their communities. For each of these leaders you will read about, each has a story for what drives them to speak out and lead. Although their stories may be unique, they also have a common thread: they learned how their voices could make things better.

I would wager that most of us became family physicians because we identified something that we wanted to make better. Committing to change something is itself a form of leadership. As professionals who are committed to changing the conditions of another’s life, we are often looked to as leaders, whether we feel that way or not.

However, when we find our voice and use it, we amplify the power of our own vision by helping others see the world the way we do. Each and every one of you, with your voice, has the potential to lead. To paraphrase Margaret Mead, never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed family physicians can change the world.