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Physician-candidates inspired by health climate to practice politics

Politicians aren't addressing the health care system's problems, say doctors who are taking up the fight themselves.

By Joel B. Finkelstein, amednews staff. Oct. 11, 2004. - See KEMPAC response

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Washington -- The driving force behind Dr. Dan Mongiardo's medical career and his political aspirations is a patient he never got to meet.

Before the Hazard, Ky., ear, nose and throat surgeon was born, his brother Dominic died in infancy, from a medical error. Dominic had a profound effect on the physician's life.

"I never knew a day in my life when I wasn't going to be a doctor, and I've never known a day in my life when I wasn't going to come back to eastern Kentucky to do everything in my power to improve the quality of health care so no other family would suffer through what my family went through," Dr. Mongiardo said.

At the forefront of his campaign is the idea that information technology and automated systems can drastically reduce the occurrence of preventable medical errors, and that the government should play a greater role in advocating for and helping finance their implementation.

That goal led him into state politics and now a bid for national office. He is running as a Democrat for one of 100 seats in the Senate, a body that currently has only one physician, Majority Leader Bill Frist, MD (R, Tenn.). Dr. Mongiardo is doing so without the support of KEMPAC (Kentucky Educational Medical Political Action Committee), the political arm of the Kentucky Medical Assn., due to his failure to support tort reform in recent votes while a member of the state senate. Instead, KEMPAC has endorsed his opponent, Sen. Jim Bunning (R, Ky.), said Marty White, director of public and government relations for the KMA.