AMA vs. Dr. OZ
Here is a joke for you. The AMA is going to war with Dr. Oz. This comes from a medical student who helped craft a resolution for the AMA:
“This is a turning point where the AMA is willing to go out in public and actively defend the profession. This is one of the most proactive steps that the AMA has taken [on mass media issues].”
Really? Fighting Dr. Oz represents something special that the AMA is doing? Sounds about right to me. I mean they don’t want to fight Obamacare, bogus quality metrics, insurance companies, Big Pharma, etc. No, that would be too hard. Instead the “AMA will look at creating ethical guidelines for physicians in the media, write a report on how doctors may be disciplined for violating medical ethics through their press involvement, and release a public statement denouncing the dissemination of dubious medical information through the radio, TV, newspapers, or websites.”
Wow, big move (tongue in cheek). Here is why the resolution is lame. The “American Medical Association can’t actually enforce anything”. Yes, that’s right. Since they are not a regulatory or licensing body, their thoughts are just exhibitions of impotence. And that basically defines the AMA.
“First Amendment definition. An amendment to the United States Constitution guaranteeing the rights of free expression and action that are fundamental to democratic government. These rights include freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech.”
And the AMA wants to take that away from one doctor? God forbid, if they ever succeeded what would they do to anyone that disagreed with the AMA?
Dr. Margaret Heinze, M.D.
I wonder if the National Medical Association, traditionally an organization of black physicians, represents its members better than the AMA? The new president of the AMA is an emergency physician (will wonders never cease?) who proclaims he wants to restore the joy of practice for America’s physicians. I’m afraid it’s too late. The AMA can also stop sending me dues invoices since I’ve never been a member and I retired a year ago!
There was a radio discussion last week where someone suggested that doctors over 65 have annual checkup for physical and cognitive and knowledge deficits. the President of the NMA said that is done annually as credentialing.
Aaron,
I thinks that’s superfluous. I don’t know any primary care doctors who want to work that long. Everyone I know who’s > 40 years of age wants to retire ASAP. Unfortunately, there
won’t be early retirement for anyone unless they are expert in investing and can forsake the
“benefits” of a working physician. It’s like the MOC bullcrap and retesting isn’t enough? Kurt
Somehow we have stumbled into the cross-hairs of American culture on this squabble. On the one hand, we’ve become a culture that trades money for easy fantasy. The village doctor represented a form of human intimacy – back when intimacy wasn’t a code-word for f*cking. Pam Wible writes about the essential nature of human intimacy in the doctor-patient relationship, a trust and compassion that is largely gone from our culture.
Dr. Oz is the Internet Porn of medicine. So what! He has decided to live big off exploiting people’s fantasies. “Miracle Weight Loss” drugs have always been around – there is always a pimp out there promising easy satisfaction for no work. WE are the ones who watch – and then tattle to the Authorities about how offended we are.
Yes, Dr. Oz is our medical Walter White, Breaking Bad – so what? He is a Name-Brand, For-Sale Entity. Tricksters like this live in every community, but it takes the belief of getting Something For Nothing to lose your money on snake oil. Nobody wants to pick up that responsibility.
He is the One Lone Nut, the individual to take the blame that we search for in any horrid situation that goes belly-up. The Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina? One lone nut, we’ve figured it out. What y’gonna do, not our problem, eh?! Ferguson = one bad cop, or one bad citizen, depending on what color crayon you have, blue or brown.
Dr. Oz, being a Celebrity, will not be destroyed – he will instead become penitent until the attention span of America drifts off, probably not long after Labor Day. He will be Chastened – he will write a Book – he will speak to Oprah about his perfidy. He will be redeemed.
For all the caterwauling about ACA, not once did the electorate show muscle and show up and speak of the particulars we wanted. We asked the Lords such as Oz and the gaggle of Authorities at CMS and the White House and the Congress to make it better. We did no better than be screaming babies, and they gave us a pacifier dipped in laudanum to shut us up. So we took it.
Here and there, we wake up and screech about some unpleasantry or another – usually one spoon-fed to us by the news empires. We yowl until the Bad Man is punished or imprisoned or has his head blown off by a drone. Then, back to sleep!
If we do not struggle to make a better world, but just accept the consequences of the Leader’s decisions, we are not citizens, but merely furtive migrant workers, on the run before INS catches up with us. We make it loud and clear that we do not want to have a conscience – but we will lash and string up the Bad People who Cause the Problems.
Why beat Dr. Oz? He is the Healthcare Reform that we all seem to have tolerated. Big, impersonal huckster medicine by the Famous – Dr. Oz, Jennie McCarthy – a multibillion-dollar EMS catastrophe to go – that’s what it says on the receipt. And no returns.
Yep, it really elevated and defended “the profession” by harassing the drug reps out of buying lunch for the office. I love when these puffer fish parade around speechmaking about the “House of Medicine.” That med student has already earned his PhD in “dipshit moron.”
You know, the young and ambitious are traditionally the shock troops of the Movement. They have no experience, and pick up the jargon and the simple rules easily. They look so good in the brown shirts, too! Or like the braying, red-faced students in the Chinese Red Guard. Just tell them that the old ways are to be overthrown – they are only too eager to help!
What would you do, make that medical student see a patient, or become a person responsible for another life? Now that’s harsh. He or she has a great future in Medicine, the NEW medicine, the one without ‘patients.’
And don’t miss the drug lunches – they would be gone by now anyhow. Once, the physician was the “obstacle” to getting their pharmaceuticals out – so romance them! Now, they’ve gone around us to direct marketing, and broadening the prescribing base. I suspect that as pharmacists get prescribing authority across the country, it will be one-stop shopping. Have itchy skin – Humira! or Enbrel! or such-and-so.
The drug reps were infuriated with physicians, behind the smile. I used to take off on the Vioxx rep about five years before it got pulled off the market. He gave The Grin, and said he’d Look Into It for the cardiac issues. In the meantime…..
Doctors are very annoying in the days of algorithm. One symptom, one problem! Our lovely medical student will perhaps someday be President of a Medical Specialty, and push the “Conformity is Quality” toxic stew on the inferiors who “see patients.”
But to get the ones with the Right Stuff for Leadership, one has to see them in action, watch what they do as a young vanguard of the will of the People! We’re not just looking for thugs in the New Medicine – we’re looking for the cream of the thugs! Anyone can bust a head – but who can bust a spirit!? Way to go, anonymous-medical-student!
That’s the AMA in a nutshell: Standing up for all of us by going after a single DOCTOR, rather than by going after any of the actual interests that are destroying medicine and doctors’ lives.
– Eric