Recently invited to review essays on humanism in health care, I found numerous small, great moments of care and connection in petite packages. They reminded me of a starting student or intern, drinking from the proverbial fire hose of medical knowledge and skill, learning not only how to doctor but to be a doctor. That is, they grow into this professional identity, originating from a deeply rooted motivation to acquire the most modern and precision skills a doctor needs to care for patients—and then honing that expertise into the craft of clinical practice. Without doubt, this is not the sole ingredient to a great physician. Similarly, the potential for any one physician’s—or future physician’s—impact is not bound by the microenvironments of individual patient-physician encounters.

Due to an abundance of submissions for last month’s theme issue on “LGBTQIA+, Sex and Gender Health,” July’s SGIM Forum includes additional articles on the same topic. As the ad hoc second volume on the theme, the content here offers perspectives and information that demonstrate several examples of how much and what kinds of impacts our skills and connections as physicians—with patients, each other, society, and so many more stakeholders in our populations’ health—can have, impacting both the patient who sits before us and people who we will never meet.

Monica Lypson, SGIM Past President, remarked this time last year that the Society would “begin to follow through on our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Statement issued in May [2021] to ensure a diverse, inclusive society for all.” LeRoi Hicks, SGIM President, comments in his column this month on how we as a Society are living by our values. As students, we learn quickly that we care for and connect with patients we see. But in developing a clear alignment of values and actions for ourselves as individual physicians, then pairing that with a similar alignment within a society like SGIM, our impact feeds into a virtuous cycle that can continue reaching beyond greater bounds than we might have previously imagined possible.