Across America, more and more doctors are proudly working longer shifts, under challenging conditions, in an effort to protect our communities from Covid-19. But we’re also performing a second, unpaid gig not commonly associated with being a physician: entering the arena of media and politics after our shifts end, to publicly advocate for the needs of our patients and fellow health workers.

After long shifts at our hospitals, doctors are now going on social media and speaking to politicians and others with the ability to implement safe policies and practices. In issuing exhortations to the government – institute a national lockdown, expedite production of tests, send ventilators and protective equipment immediately – what drives us is concern for our patients and ourselves. While many of us have political views we’ll express outside of work, we’re used to keeping that part of ourselves walled off when we don our scrubs and lab coats. But because of our growing frustration at the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic that now puts every American at risk, thousands of physicians have become activist doctors.

Stated differently, it’s one thing to have political views on the side (heck, I even ran for office once). But we’re now at a place where doctors need to engage in public advocacy as an urgent part of our job.

Without proper protective equipment, doctors are practically defenseless against Covid-19. (My team and I are actually lucky, relative to our brothers and sisters in hotspot emergency rooms, who have become cannon fodder in trash bags.) Make no mistake, we doctors signed up for this job. We took an oath to protect our communities and do no harm. And increasingly, more of us now believe that this oath requires us to speak out about the catastrophic mismanagement and misinformation from the federal government. What we want above all is for the administration to listen to doctors, nurses and frontline health workers – and stop playing politics.

If we remain silent about this problem, we are shirking our duty. The result is we’ve had to become public advocates

Believe me, many doctors would prefer to avoid the topic of politics. But when the president refuses to ramp up production of ventilators that can save the lives of patients in respiratory failure, speaking up avoids harm to our patients. When the administration fails to provide protective equipment to frontline health workers, we feel a duty to fight for physicians risking their lives. Hence #WeNeedPPE has started trending among physicians.

In my home state of Michigan, our governor, Gretchen Whitmer, has been working hard to combat the impact of this deadly virus. When Trump criticizes her and threatens to withhold aid from our state, it forces many doctors who usually eschew politics in the workplace to speak out. Why? As first-person witnesses to the tragedy of this pandemic, we know our colleagues, friends and neighbors could pay with their lives.

I work the overnight shift in the emergency department of my rural Michigan hospital. Patients are coming into our small emergency department with symptoms consistent with Covid-19. But based on an inadequate response by our federal government, we have a shortage of tests for the virus. The result: we only test patients we deem critical enough to admit to the hospital, frontline healthcare workers and public safety officials, and people with weakened immune systems. Others are sent home without testing. We assume they have Covid-19. All we can do is tell them to isolate themselves for the appropriate amount of time, and we move to the next room or the next patient in the tent.

If we remain silent about this problem, we are shirking our duty. The result is we’ve had to become public advocates. We have no choice.

I work with an amazing team of nurses, nurse assistants, X-ray and lab techs, and cleaners. During every shift, we go in and out of exam rooms, circulating among patients who may be Covid-19 positive. A few of those patients, struggling to breathe, exhale loudly or cough into our faces. At the back of our minds, we think back to our children, our families at home, wondering if we’d told them enough how much we love them more than anything in the world.

At the end of my shift, I place my N95 mask in a paper bag. For the next five shifts, unless it’s torn or soiled, that blue mask is all that stands between me and one of the most contagious, deadliest viruses we’ve seen in generations.

Before I drive home, as the sun rises, I post a brief selfie to share my thoughts about Covid-19 on social media. When I get home, I thoroughly clean myself and start connecting with other doctors across America. More and more of us pledge to speak out about what we need to save lives – our patients’ and our own. Every few days, I get calls from the news media about what doctors and our patients need. More masks, gowns, gloves, ICU beds, ventilators. Through a camera hooked up to my laptop that beams me to studios at national cable news outlets and other platforms, I implore the president to take action to ensure doctors and frontline medical staff get resources to protect themselves, care for people and save lives.

Then I sleep for a few hours and do it all over again.

What specifically do we physicians advocate for? Thousands of us have signed a letter urging the administration to do three things that could give doctors, hospitals and Americans a fighting chance against Covid-19.

First, we need mass testing that could help us better track the spread of the disease, something South Korea and Germany did early on and who appear to be keeping Covid-19 from metastasizing into an uncontrollable tumor.

Next, a national shelter-in-place order can buy hospitals some time as Covid-19 rampages across America, spread by a mix of asymptomatic carriers and reckless spring breakers.

And third, we need to fully implement and enforce the Defense Production Act to mobilize the national manufacture of critical lifesaving equipment, from N95 masks to ventilators.

Time is short. Unless we act soon, many of us will get sick. Some of us have already lost our lives. And more Americans will be at risk when frontline health workers drop like flies. With enough equipment and the right policies, we can rein in this pandemic and save lives.

For many of us doctors, that means advocating for our patients and colleagues not just privately, but publicly. It’s a new role for most doctors, but the times – and our oath – demand it.