Responding to acts of terrorism -- the physician's role

AMA Leader Commentary. By Richard F. Corlin, MD. Oct. 15, 2001.

AMA LEADER COMMENTARY

A few words about current events in medical practice

SEE ARCHIVES

A message to all physicians from AMA President Richard F. Corlin, MD.

For all of us, the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, is a searing memory we will never forget. As physicians, we daily act to preserve human life. And I, like so many of you out there, still cannot understand how people could have so little respect for human life -- even their own -- that they would commit the heinous acts of terrorism in New York and Washington, D.C.

This is, of course, a shocking, frightening and angry time for all of us and for our country. Yet it is a time in which I find great inspiration from my long-ago decision to become a physician. The committed response of physicians and other health professionals in New York and Washington, D.C. -- and throughout the country -- is something in which we can take great pride.

We and our fellow citizens have been reminded that physicians are individuals who make a critical difference. We have had the honor of helping our injured fellow citizens and the survivors of the lost begin the healing process. We -- and the nation -- have watched colleagues hard at work, ankle deep in dust and dwarfed by the grotesque sculptures of the rubble at ground zero of this catastrophe.

The urge to volunteer their services was the immediate response for so many doctors at that time. Thousands volunteered through the state societies -- especially New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Virginia and the District of Columbia. The Medical Society of the State of New York, which provided an emergency volunteer telephone number, received offers of help from more than 7,000 physicians. [...]