A Motto for All Health Workers: Resist, Resist, Resist
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Activism
/ March 12, 2026
A Motto for All Health Workers: Resist, Resist, Resist
Doing our work and keeping our heads down isn’t a victory. We need to fight this regime every day, in every way.
Gregg Gonsalves
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Nurse practitioner Sarah Malin-Roodman attends a protest outside of UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland in Oakland, California, on Monday, January 26, 2026.
(Jane Tyska / Digital First Media / East Bay Times via Getty Images)
Iwas in a work-related conversation with colleagues recently and someone just said it out loud: We are in terrible times, the kind you read about in history books.
People are being killed, disappeared from our streets, whisked away to foreign shores, or held in crowded, filthy, inhumane detention centers. If and when they are released, they are dropped off far from home, often without their belongings, with no proper clothing in the cold of winter. People fear for their safety, stay in their homes, take their children out of school, stop going to the doctor, stop riding the bus. This is a world of terror.
All of this is thanks to a regime devoted to a twisted version of Christianity, to rank racism, misogyny, homophobia, sheer greed, and a lavish taste for cruelty for its own sake. What are scientists, clinicians, and public health practitioners supposed to do in this moment? What use is research when our patients might be deported tomorrow? Why try to stem the tide of outbreaks when the world has fallen apart?
This is why: because even in these times, enlarging the scope of human knowledge matters. The search for cures still matters. The fate of individual patients still matters. The containment of infectious diseases still matters.
But it isn’t enough. Doing our work and keeping our heads down isn’t a victory, and it is not resistance. Our position in the “zone of interest” may keep some of us away from direct contact with the terror outside, but we can hear the screams and cries now of those affected, beamed to us through our phones, our televisions, and the radio as we drive to work. We cannot say we do not know what is happening across this country. And yes, silence is complicity.
I know it’s very easy for me to say these things, sitting as a professor at a wealthy university, in a very blue city in a very blue state. I am not asking people to take risks that would jeopardize their own safety and well-being—though many have in Minneapolis, in Los Angeles, in Portland, in Chicago. We know the stories of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Current Issue
April 2026 Issue
But there has to be a new baseline. Those of us who work in health have a larger …
We're watching the same failure loop.
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Current Issue
Activism
/ March 12, 2026
A Motto for All Health Workers: Resist, Resist, Resist
Doing our work and keeping our heads down isn’t a victory. We need to fight this regime every day, in every way.
Gregg Gonsalves
Share
Copy Link
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Ad Policy
Nurse practitioner Sarah Malin-Roodman attends a protest outside of UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland in Oakland, California, on Monday, January 26, 2026.
(Jane Tyska / Digital First Media / East Bay Times via Getty Images)
Iwas in a work-related conversation with colleagues recently and someone just said it out loud: We are in terrible times, the kind you read about in history books.
People are being killed, disappeared from our streets, whisked away to foreign shores, or held in crowded, filthy, inhumane detention centers. If and when they are released, they are dropped off far from home, often without their belongings, with no proper clothing in the cold of winter. People fear for their safety, stay in their homes, take their children out of school, stop going to the doctor, stop riding the bus. This is a world of terror.
All of this is thanks to a regime devoted to a twisted version of Christianity, to rank racism, misogyny, homophobia, sheer greed, and a lavish taste for cruelty for its own sake. What are scientists, clinicians, and public health practitioners supposed to do in this moment? What use is research when our patients might be deported tomorrow? Why try to stem the tide of outbreaks when the world has fallen apart?
This is why: because even in these times, enlarging the scope of human knowledge matters. The search for cures still matters. The fate of individual patients still matters. The containment of infectious diseases still matters.
But it isn’t enough. Doing our work and keeping our heads down isn’t a victory, and it is not resistance. Our position in the “zone of interest” may keep some of us away from direct contact with the terror outside, but we can hear the screams and cries now of those affected, beamed to us through our phones, our televisions, and the radio as we drive to work. We cannot say we do not know what is happening across this country. And yes, silence is complicity.
I know it’s very easy for me to say these things, sitting as a professor at a wealthy university, in a very blue city in a very blue state. I am not asking people to take risks that would jeopardize their own safety and well-being—though many have in Minneapolis, in Los Angeles, in Portland, in Chicago. We know the stories of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Current Issue
April 2026 Issue
But there has to be a new baseline. Those of us who work in health have a larger …
A Motto for All Health Workers: Resist, Resist, Resist
We're watching the same failure loop.
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A Motto for All Health Workers: Resist, Resist, Resist
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Magazine
Latest
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Current Issue
Activism
/ March 12, 2026
A Motto for All Health Workers: Resist, Resist, Resist
Doing our work and keeping our heads down isn’t a victory. We need to fight this regime every day, in every way.
Gregg Gonsalves
Share
Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Email
Ad Policy
Nurse practitioner Sarah Malin-Roodman attends a protest outside of UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland in Oakland, California, on Monday, January 26, 2026.
(Jane Tyska / Digital First Media / East Bay Times via Getty Images)
Iwas in a work-related conversation with colleagues recently and someone just said it out loud: We are in terrible times, the kind you read about in history books.
People are being killed, disappeared from our streets, whisked away to foreign shores, or held in crowded, filthy, inhumane detention centers. If and when they are released, they are dropped off far from home, often without their belongings, with no proper clothing in the cold of winter. People fear for their safety, stay in their homes, take their children out of school, stop going to the doctor, stop riding the bus. This is a world of terror.
All of this is thanks to a regime devoted to a twisted version of Christianity, to rank racism, misogyny, homophobia, sheer greed, and a lavish taste for cruelty for its own sake. What are scientists, clinicians, and public health practitioners supposed to do in this moment? What use is research when our patients might be deported tomorrow? Why try to stem the tide of outbreaks when the world has fallen apart?
This is why: because even in these times, enlarging the scope of human knowledge matters. The search for cures still matters. The fate of individual patients still matters. The containment of infectious diseases still matters.
But it isn’t enough. Doing our work and keeping our heads down isn’t a victory, and it is not resistance. Our position in the “zone of interest” may keep some of us away from direct contact with the terror outside, but we can hear the screams and cries now of those affected, beamed to us through our phones, our televisions, and the radio as we drive to work. We cannot say we do not know what is happening across this country. And yes, silence is complicity.
I know it’s very easy for me to say these things, sitting as a professor at a wealthy university, in a very blue city in a very blue state. I am not asking people to take risks that would jeopardize their own safety and well-being—though many have in Minneapolis, in Los Angeles, in Portland, in Chicago. We know the stories of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Current Issue
April 2026 Issue
But there has to be a new baseline. Those of us who work in health have a larger …
