My name is Peter Hsu. I am a physician by training and I do currently practice medicine, which always prompts the question why politics. Since we are all busy, I will try to make it brief.
My clinical focus is in internal medicine and pediatric hematology/oncology (big words, whatever), but my research focus is actually in health policy, particularly looking at how Obamacare affects cancer patients. Now, Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act, in my opinion, is one of the best policies to be pushed forward in our generation. Yes, it needs modifications and tweaks, but it is definitely a very good first step.
Back to why politics, well, rather than doing health policy at a research or academic level, I did some soul searching and eventually wanted to influence health policy on a different level or platform, hence politics. In fact, I ran for the 2023 Cambridge City Council, but not going to lie, it was a very last minute decision and I did not know what I was doing to be honest, so I lost, which was supposed to be the way looking back objectively. So, here I am again! Trying my hardest to get your number one vote again, but much more prepared than in 2023!
Other details about me: I was born and raised in Taiwan. I came to the States when I was 12, along with my mother and younger brother, while my father stayed back in Taiwan to work in order to provide for us. I went through middle school, high school, college, and obtained a master’s degree in biology all in Southern California. Thereafter, I graduated from medical school and went through a combined Internal Medicine-Pediatrics residency program in Northeast Ohio. Following residency, I completed a fellowship in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology in Nashville, Tennessee. In 2020, I got a job at Boston Children’s Hospital and have been living in Cambridge since then. As of now, I work at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center as an attending physician and teach at Harvard Medical School.
If elected, I would like to expand access to high-quality health care to more people, especially kids, teens, youth, adolescents, young adults, women, older folks, and folks from lower socioeconomic class. I am also pro affordable housing, bike lanes, education equity, health literacy, climate justice, and crime prevention. I believe in smart and cost-effective city budgeting and I vow to eliminate racism. I promise to work on all of the abovementioned issues with all of you if elected, so elect me! I do carry a few degrees behind my name (MD, MPH, MS, whatever), but I don’t believe degrees are the real reasons you should vote for me. Reasons you should vote for me:
- I am unbiased and my only goal is to make Cambridge better in the long run. I will actively listen to and work with everyone; using my profession as an analogy, I take care of every patient the way I would want my family to be taken care of, regardless of my feelings toward anything else.
- It is going to be really cool to have a physician on our City Council who is competent, unbiased, data-driven, and compassionate.
- I am one of the hardest working folks on earth and I will work hard for you and our City. However, I don’t just work hard, I am also a fun person, and I promise, together, we can have fun and achieve more for Cambridge.
- I am caring, empathetic, fair, reasonable, objective, and inclusive.
- As in medicine, I will be as transparent and honest as possible, including when I make mistakes.
When I found out I was coming to Cambridge/Boston for work in 2020, Michelle and I had a deep discussion. Selfishly, I wanted her and the kids to come with me, but because I was not sure how long I was going to stay in Cambridge/Boston at the time, plus the fact that real estate was all about locations, we decided to trial this long-distance family life for a few years. On average, we see each other 1 week out of every month and we facetime everyday.
