If you have not seen this, Sermo, the network for physicians to discuss health matters also has a blog whereby individuals, such as me and perhaps yourself if you are not a physician can read up and see some of the issues being discussed at the blog. Below is a letter written by the president of Sermo and his poll on how Sermo members voted with their confidence levels with the AMA which has been shared at the blog.
There’s a lot of negatives listed on physician membership questions and how members feel the AMA represents them based on the survey taken by over 4000 Sermo members. BD
The Biggest Risk to US Physicians: The AMA
Posted: Wednesday, July 8 2009On June 15th, 2009, President Barack Obama traveled to Chicago to deliver a speech to share his vision for reinventing healthcare. It was an impressive oration and an important step in the journey towards comprehensive healthcare reform. Too bad the US physician community was a no show, for although he received several rounds of applause and a standing ovation, his audience, the American Medical Association (AMA) has long since lost it’s role as the voice of US physicians.
We stand on the verge of a trillion dollar healthcare reform effort – the largest in our country’s history – and yet input from practicing physicians has been scarce if not entirely absent. The importance of dedicated, practicing physicians having a voice in this debate is critical to the future of our nation’s healthcare. Seeing the increasing divergence between the perception that the AMA seeks to perpetuate among the general public and an increasingly angered physician population, Sermo polled the 100,000 US physicians in our community as to what they thought of the AMA. Within five days, over 4,100 US physicians voted on the poll and discussed it in over 700 comments. The results were nothing short of stunning – 89% of those physicians say, “the AMA does not speak for me” (See full survey results by clicking the image on the right).
The following is a posting I presented along with the poll to the Sermo physician community on July 1st, 2009. This will be the first of a series of blog posts representing the Sermo physician community’s view points on key issues facing healthcare and the reform process currently under way in our country.
Daniel Palestrant, MD
Founder & CEO
Sermo, Inc.
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