Resident Physicians Ready to Fight for Physician Well-being and Health Justice for Minnesota
Minneapolis—On Wednesday, March 12, a supermajority of the more than 200 resident physicians employed by Hennepin Healthcare filed for union recognition with the Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR/SEIU)—the largest physicians’ union in the country. Facing grueling working conditions while caring for patients across Minnesota and beyond, the young doctors say they are unionizing to gain a mechanism to radically shift both physician well-being and care for the state. They are calling on Hennepin Health to begin negotiations for a fair first union contract right away.
“We came to Hennepin specifically because we wanted to work in a safety net hospital caring for this community, and so all of the residents care so deeply and dive headfirst into our work,” said Dr. Nicole Lund. “But we are stretched so thin, and the truth is, it doesn’t have to be this way. Residents are Hennepin–we know this hospital–so with a voice and input into decisions about our working environment, we hope we can win support to better care for ourselves, our families, and our patients.”
The doctors say that system leadership overworks and underpays resident physicians to overcome massive gaps in staffing and resources, leaving the doctors exhausted, burnt out, and in a state of chronic financial stress. Working at the center of care at Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC), Minnesota’s only level-one trauma center, as well as at dozens of other facilities statewide, the physicians treat many patients facing high barriers to care, including folks without insurance, working class patients of color, immigrant patients, and Native American patients traveling from reservations.
“If you’re treating patients who don’t have access to the health care we all need, it’s that much more important to be able to give 100% when you’re with each and every person,” said Dr. Abishek Thatigutla. “But hospital administration basically uses residents to plug holes in an understaffed system. It’s simply not sustainable to keep pushing ourselves this much, and we’re unionizing not only to address our conditions, but hopefully to improve the system itself.”
Regularly working up to 80 hours a week on pay that amounts to as little as minimum wage per hour, the doctors struggle to afford to live in Minneapolis–with basic needs like haircuts seeming like luxuries. Conditions are particularly difficult for physicians who have children or who are planning to start families, with parents scrambling to afford childcare and pregnant physicians describing a management culture that feels hostile to their basic needs.
“One thing that has motivated me to want to unionize and ensure we have a collective voice is that there just isn’t a whole lot of support for parents, and especially for pregnant physicians,” said Dr. Lund. “I want to leave this place better than I found it, and part of that is bringing in a more diverse resident body, which includes women and women having children.”
The physicians are joining a historic national movement of physicians seeking to fundamentally upend an exploitative, profit-driven status quo in medicine, with CIR more than doubling in size since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
###
The Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR) is the largest house staff union in the United States. A local of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), representing over 37,000 resident physicians and fellows. Our members are dedicated to improving residency training and education, advancing patient care, and expanding healthcare access for our communities.
