The doctors and nurses running for Congress

Annie Andrews, a pediatrician and Democratic candidate for Senate in South Carolina, said that the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for HHS secretary was what drove her to run for office.

"The day I decided to enter this race was the day that RFK Jr. was nominated to lead [HHS]," she said. "He's been my professional archnemesis for decades, and any other pediatrician in this country would say the same thing."

Andrews, who worked for 14 years at MUSC Children's Hospital in Charleston, accused Kennedy of spreading misinformation about vaccines, which she said was directly responsible for a recent measles outbreak in South Carolina and for the erosion of trust in doctors and public health officials.

"We have a lot of work to do as health professionals to push back against these decades of anti-vaccine and anti-science conspiracy theories," she said.

Andrews is running against current Republican Sen. Darline Graham, who was nominated to her position following the death of her brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham. According to recent polling, the race is close but favors Graham's reelection.

Meanwhile, Richar Pan, a pediatrician in California who previously served as a state lawmaker, said he didn't think he would be running for office again. However, after watching Kennedy and the Trump administration upend vaccine policy and reduce healthcare affordability, he said he decided to run for Congress.

"Maybe it's time to get back in the ring," he said.

Pan is the Democratic candidate running against Independent candidate Kevin Kiley to serve as the representative for California's 6th District.

Elsewhere, many other healthcare professionals are running for Congress. Abdul El-Sayed, a former physician and public health official, is currently running as the Democratic candidate for Senate in Michigan against Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers. If elected, El-Sayed, who is not a practicing physician, would be the first Democratic doctor in the Senate since Ernest Gruening of Alaska, who served until the late 1960s.

In addition, Amish Shah, an ED physician and former Democratic state legislator, is running to represent Arizona's 1st District in seat that opened up after Rep. David Schweikert (R) chose to run for governor. And John Cowan, a neurosurgeon, is running as the Republican nominee to succeed Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R) in Georgia's 11th District.

Meanwhile, there are 18 candidates running for Congress who are nurses, according to the American Nurses Association (ANA). Of those candidates, 10 are Democrats, four are Republicans, one is Libertarian, one is an Independent American Party candidate, and two are independents.

Those candidates include incumbents like Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) who served as an Army nurse for six years before becoming a physician, as well as Reps. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.), Sheri Biggs (R-S.C.), and Jen Kiggans (R-Va.).

Why so many healthcare providers are running for office

According to Kristoffer Shields, director of the Eagleton Science and Politics Program at Rutgers-New Brunswick, healthcare professionals have certain advantages to running for office. "People generally trust their doctors," he said.

Healthcare providers are also able to run as "outsiders" who have a specific expertise and passion, rather than as career politicians, Shields added.

In this election cycle, healthcare is a large part of the affordability issues that campaigns are emphasizing, said Jacob Garcia, chair of the Washington State Nurses Association Political Action Committee. "Viewing it from my nursing lens, with Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right now [patients'] basic needs are not being met, like shelter and providing for themselves and their family. They are not going to do preventative measures -- insurance is probably going to be one thing they won't pay for."

"I think we are seeing a breaking point within the healthcare system," Garcia added. "Both regular people and those that work in the system know and see how unsustainable it is ... We're already seeing cracks, especially in rural communities; we're seeing hospitals close, big systems gobbling up everyone, and people trying to do more with less."