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our electronic inbox of test results and patient messages and deal with prior authorization requests. There is little time for such professional society gatherings, and they have largely faded away. Board certification and annual recertification, once voluntary, have become as necessary as state licensure for one’ s ability to practice medicine. Membership in national specialty-specific societies has also become essential to keeping up with the technical requirements of practicing in one’ s chosen field. With so many increasing demands for our time and attention, it is easy for the needs, and benefits, of local professional society membership to get pushed to the side.
However, we need the social support of our local medical organizations now more than ever. The problem of physician burnout is well-known and could be the subject of an entire issue of this journal. Although reliable statistics on physician suicide are hard to come by, it is certainly plausible that an entire medical school class is required every year just to replace the physicians lost over the course of a year due to mental health. As we tend to further divide our location of practice to boost efficiency, we have become outpatient primary care physicians and hospitalists, outpatient gynecologists and L & D specialists, and never the twain shall meet. Gone are the days of seeing our colleagues on rounds in the morning before we head to the office, or discussing our shared problems over a hot meal in the doctor’ s lounge between cases or consults. We are becoming increasingly isolated, even though we need more of each other’ s support to deal with the modern stressors of practicing medicine.
Also squeezed out of our increasingly tight schedules is the time to advocate for improvements in social determinants of health. It matters not if we practice our profession at the highest levels of skill, following every evidence-based guideline, if a patient cannot come see us because she has no transportation, someone to care for her children or she cannot afford to obtain the medication we prescribe. Nor can we use our new electronic physician order entry system, with all its important clinical decision support and safety checks, to prescribe clean air, nutritious food or opportunities for exercise and reduction of stress, even though all these things are as important to our patients’ health as modern pharmaceuticals or advanced procedures. We have a long tradition of individual physicians in our community advocating for notable advances in public health. We can thank Dr. Robert Powell for our present-day lack of exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke, and Dr. Whitney Jones for his efforts to increase screening and prevention for colon cancer, just for a couple examples. But it has never been more important to work as an organized group of medical professionals to counteract the avalanche of misinformation that threatens the health and well-being of our citizenry today. Some of the greatest advances in our health care system, from vaccination to federal funding for medical research, are now threatened in an unprecedented manner.
It is incumbent upon us, as an organized profession, to protect our patients from the harm that results from the promulgation of conspiracy theories and pseudoscience. While in many cases our national professional societies can best lead these efforts, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics fighting back against the CDC’ s capitulation in weakening our childhood vaccination recommendations, often such advocacy needs to be more locally tailored.
Your Greater Louisville Medical Society and the Kentucky Medical Association exist to support our patients and the doctors who care for them. We can speak as one voice to state and local officials, lawmakers and the media, advocating for the health care needs of the citizens of the Commonwealth, regardless of our individual medical specialties. And while there is a long tradition of putting our patients’ needs before our own as a hallmark of professionalism, the reality is that we must take care of our caregivers so that they may care for others. The practice of medicine will always be stressful because of the nature of the issues we deal with. It should not be needlessly made even more stressful by unnecessary insurance and government bureaucracy that contributes nothing towards making our patients healthier. Only your fellow physicians truly understand the nature of these intrusive stressors we face today. We must address these challenges together. Muddling through on one’ s own is a poor option.
GLMS and KMA will advocate on behalf of all physicians and their patients whether you are a member or not, and whether you actively participate or not. But the strength of that advocacy is increased when membership numbers increase. And the quality of that advocacy increases with the active participation of our membership. My grandmother certainly never hesitated to make her personal opinions known to local officials, on an individual level, when she thought something needed doing. But she was also a member of numerous public service organizations. One of her proudest achievements was her membership in the Women’ s Guild at Jewish Hospital, working alongside others to raise funds to support the hospital. She knew the value of organizing as a group to get things done. And she always appreciated having a copy of the Jefferson County Medical Society Pictorial Roster.*
Dr. Goldberg is a gynecologic oncologist working part-time at the Norton Cancer Institute.
* Due to increased production costs, GLMS is no longer producing the Roster. In the meantime, we are working on a digital alternative for our members.
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