For the one walking point.
This page is for anyone who is the first to push for change when few people want it, or who is doing what’s right when no one else will. It gathers writing to steady you, the stories of movements in medicine that grew because others joined in, and practical ways to act. Start wherever you are.
“What we are given is not the limit of what we can create.”
When you’re the one out front
Speaking up in the moment, stepping away from what is expected, or naming what others would rather leave unsaid. These pieces are about the cost of that choice, and the cost of not making it.
It’s a military combat term describing a unit on patrol in unknown territory. There is that one person who “walks point” – taking the lead, being the tip of the spear, the one in the most dangerous position who will be the first to encounter the enemy.
— Rodney Horikawa, friend and former special education teacher
It is a rare person who walks point while everyone else follows. And it is a lonely place to be.
— Rodney Horikawa
…real change occurs in the exact moment and space when inappropriate, discriminatory, and ethically debased language is spoken and a courageous person makes the decision to intentionally speak up against it.
— Dr. Cedrek McFadden, The Unacceptable Cost of Silence, 2016
Stepping away from patient care is painfully incongruent with our innate and ingrained instinct to care for patients regardless of the personal cost.
For the long middle of the work
Change is slow, and the person pushing for it often feels it most. This writing is for the days that are hard.
I came across a poem he wrote in 1905 that has been a source of inspiration for so many social activists in India when they were experiencing the “dark night of the soul”, a part of the journey that all activists and wayfarers know well.
— Rodney Horikawa, on Rabindranath Tagore’s poem “Walk Alone”
This is said to someone who is walking in “storm” with her head bent into the wind.
— Rodney Horikawa, on the Japanese phrase gambatte kudasai
We cannot control everything that happens to us, but we have agency in deciding what to make of the hardships we’ve endured.
— What the Lotus Holds, 2026
When others join in
Movements are not built alone. These are ones I’ve helped start or carry, and some of the writing behind them.
Change is usually partial, often contested, and almost never the work of one person.
— Advocacy page
…a movement is only as trustworthy as the accountability built into it, and centering survivors has to be a practice, not a slogan.
— Resident Physicians as Leaders in TIME’S UP Healthcare, note from 2026
Ways to act
Committees, public comment, and organizing each change different things. Some places to start.
This work is better done together
If you’re walking point on something in medicine, I’d like to hear what you’re doing.