News in brief - Sept. 8, 2003

Dr. Palmisano's inaugural address published in Vital Speeches - CMA says Healthcare Partners should get MICRA protection - Palliative care centers get funds to teach others - Osteopathic physicians group installs president - More OxyContin lawsuits dismissed - Virginia creates online donor registry

Dr. Palmisano's inaugural address published in Vital Speeches

"Advice From the Past, Hope for the Future," the speech that Donald J. Palmisano, MD, delivered at his June 18 inaugural ceremony as AMA president, appears in the Aug. 15 issue of Vital Speeches of the Day. The speech urges physicians to be proactive in pursuing solutions to current medical profession problems: a broken medical liability system, managed care hassles, and the "shame and blame" game that deals with physician error.

Vital Speeches of the Day is a bimonthly publication that publishes "the best thought of the best minds on current national questions." Since 1934, it has published the speeches of the recognized leaders of public opinion, including Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.

Dr. Palmisano's inaugural speech can be read online and viewed as a video (no longer available).

CMA says Healthcare Partners should get MICRA protection

A physician partnership formed to practice medicine is a "health care provider" and should be protected by California's $250,000 cap on noneconomic damages in medical malpractice lawsuits, the California Medical Assn. said in a recent friend-of-the-court brief.

The California Court of Appeal is considering a case, Lathrop v. Healthcare Partners, in which a lower court ruled that Healthcare Partners should pay $2.1 million in noneconomic damages because several doctors that the partnership employed failed to diagnose and treat a woman's breast cancer. The Superior Court in San Francisco ruled that Healthcare Partners is not a "health care provider" that the cap protects, but instead is a "managed care entity" that isn't shielded by the cap.

The CMA, the California Dental Assn. and California Healthcare Assn. argue in their brief that the state's law has long recognized organized physician groups such as Healthcare Partners as "health care providers" and protected by the cap.

Palliative care centers get funds to teach others

Six institutions that have been recognized as palliative care leadership centers will split $4.5 million in grant money over the next three years and will provide visiting health care professionals instruction in how to start palliative care programs at their own institutions.

The program is being run by the Center to Advance Palliative Care and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. It will focus on issues such as financial and business planning, staffing, and clinical and quality outcomes for programs that include pain and symptom control, coordination of care, and support for family caregivers.

The six institutions are: Fairview Foundation (Fairview Health Services), Minneapolis; Massey Cancer Center of Virginia Commonwealth University Health System, Richmond, Va.; Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; Mount Carmel Health System, Columbus, Ohio; Palliative Care Center of the Bluegrass, Lexington, Ky.; and the University of California, San Francisco.

Osteopathic physicians group installs president

Darryl A. Beehler, DO, of Detroit Lakes, Minn., is the new president of the American Osteopathic Assn. for 2003-2004.

Dr. Beehler, an emergency physician at Douglas County Hospital in Alexandria, Minn., has served as a member of AOA's board of trustees since 1992 and as a delegate to the AOA house since 1978. He has chaired numerous departments at the association and is the board liaison to the American Assn. of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine.

Dr. Beehler earned his doctor of osteopathic medicine degree from the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine, in Kirksville, Mo.

More OxyContin lawsuits dismissed

Federal and state judges in August dismissed six lawsuits against the makers of OxyContin, raising the total number of cases dismissed against the company to 42.

Dozens of people who took the drug or whose family members took the drug filed lawsuits against the manufacturer, Purdue Pharma LP, claiming that it put an unsafe drug on the market, improperly marketed the painkiller and caused people to become addicted to the substance.

Virginia creates online donor registry

In an effort to boost organ donation rates, the state of Virginia has created save7lives.org, an organ donation registry so named because the organs and tissues from one donor can be used by seven different people.

Operating within the state's Dept. of Motor Vehicles, the database can only be accessed by officials at approved transplant agencies.

The database will reportedly speed organ procurement because agencies will no longer have to contact state police to check on a person's organ-donor status. Gov. Mark Warner was the first person to register in the database Aug. 21. However, everyone who previously registered with the DMV was automatically added to the registry.