Op-ed by BMC Primary Care Residents & Faculty

We wanted to share one of the exciting outcomes of this year’s Primary Care spring advocacy project: an op ed by the residents advocating for decarceration. This year, as last year, residents and faculty collaborated with Prisoners Legal Services, a group of Massachusetts lawyers who work on behalf of people who are incarcerated. They focussed on the plight of people who are incarcerated during COVID-19. For the op-ed, they targeted CommonWealth Magazine, a magazine whose main audience is Massachusetts legislators, due to a timely piece of legislation that they wanted to support. One of our senior residents Jordy Laks led the collaborative writing project and had a great deal of engagement from the entire group. A smaller group of residents (Hannan Braun, Sam Siskind and Jordy) also wrote an affadavit in support of a class action suit that Prisoners Legal Services initiated to highlight the dangerous conditions in MA prisons during COVID-19. In addition, several residents provided statements at a virtual meeting of legislators around the House bill.

We are super proud of this resident-led effort and their strong advocacy on behalf of a vulnerable population that BMC serves. The full op ed can be found here.