Grassroots physician activism is key to system change

AMA Leader Commentary. By J. Edward Hill, MD. Nov. 4, 2002.

AMA LEADER COMMENTARY

A few words about current events in medical practice

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A message to all physicians from J. Edward Hill, MD, chair of the AMA Board of Trustees.

It's been said that activists don't just say a river is dirty. True activists roll up their sleeves, put on their wading boots -- and clean up the river.

If physicians want to clean up the medical environment, we'll need to roll up our sleeves as well. It's easy to complain about outrageous insurance premiums, plummeting payments and endless red tape -- all of which make it more difficult to provide medical care. It's a little bit harder, but a lot more effective, to become activists on behalf of our patients and our profession, at whatever level of involvement we can manage.

Recently, physician grassroots activity has surged in response to soaring medical liability insurance premiums. State and county medical societies nationwide have held rallies, staged press conferences and organized marches on state houses for tort reform, often with the support of the AMA and its National House Call. In Florida, Illinois, Mississippi, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, West Virginia and elsewhere, doctors are saying it loud and clear: Skyrocketing liability costs and a runaway legal system are hurting medical practices -- and patients.

The media are listening, from ABC's "Nightline" to The Biloxi Sun Herald. Readers are learning about obstetricians who can't afford to deliver babies, and trauma victims who may have died because orthopedic surgeons and neurosurgeons can't afford to staff level 1 trauma centers. As The Wall Street Journal put it a few months ago: "Want a sense of what ever-increasing medical liability insurance premiums are doing to health care? Just tune into your local news." [...]