Last week I attended the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) Annual Meeting. As with most of our specialty society gatherings, it’s an enormous event that encompasses activities ranging from lectures, workshops, industry exhibits, advocacy events, and governance meetings that include a 400-member House of Delegates and a 50-member Board of Directors.
Having attended
these meetings for almost 15 years, I’m continually amazed by the many talented
anesthesiologists who serve in a variety of leadership roles for the ASA. Our organization, again like many other
specialties, is truly one led from the ground up, with hundreds of physicians
volunteering their time to serve in countless ways.
One initiative
begun almost a decade ago focused on the ASA’s leadership track. Known as the Flowerdew Report, it represents
an effort to identify those anesthesiologists who plan to run for one of our
nationally elected leadership positions.
These individuals proclaim their desire to run for Vice Chair for
Professional Affairs in 2015, for example, or Assistant Secretary in 2016, and
so on. This process helps our membership
begin to consider these individuals as future candidates, and it helps the
candidates develop support, identify key issues, and size up potential
opponents. Many of these offices, of
course, ultimately lead to the opportunity to serve as President of a 50,000+
member organization.
In addition to
those members who commit their time and energy to serving our specialty,
several members of the ASA are running for, or already hold, elected
office. One member is a state
representative in Tennessee. Another is
running for the state senate in Oklahoma.
Andy Harris is currently the only anesthesiologist to ever hold national
office, serving as a second term U.S. Congressman from Maryland.
I share all of
this to ask a few questions. What would
it take to develop a similar plan for physicians to pursue elected office in
South Carolina? Are there any SCMA
members who are planning to seek office in the next few years? Who would be our best candidates, and what
resources would they need? What are the
barriers faced by physicians who consider elected office, and how could we
overcome them? Perhaps most physicians
would ask: Why on earth would a doctor want to become a politician?
I don’t have all
the answers, but I hope readers of this blog might share their thoughts. There are excellent candidate schools run by
the AMA and several national specialty organizations, including the ASA. Having been mentored by several tremendously
talented physicians in this state, I can personally attest that we would have
some very viable candidates should they ever choose to run for office.
And why
not? If healthcare continues to account
for over 20% of state and federal budgets, who better to guide public policy
than physicians? With years of advanced
education, thousands of patients treated, and a level of public trust that remains
consistently high in survey after survey, how can we nudge some of our best and
brightest colleagues to put their talents to use in the political realm?
Perhaps it’s
time to map out a strategy. Many of you
already serve a “higher calling,” serving on hospital committees, in leadership
roles with county medical societies, the SCMA, or in your own state and
national specialty societies. If just a
few physicians decided to pursue elected office, it could dramatically change
some of the legislative issues that we address on behalf of our patients and
colleagues. So I leave you with a
question: Is it time to develop our own South Carolina Flowerdew Report?
Share your
thoughts: robrmorganjr@bellsouth.net
Thanks, Rob. Interesting questions and I am glad we do have a few docs who are willing to devote their energies to elected office across the state and nation. I do hear, though, that many of our physician friends who are active in county/state/specialty societies do it because they find that is where they can make the most difference. They seem to think that it is easier and less congested to make meaningful changes in these arenas than expose themselves to the risks inherit in other politics. Also, those who run for public office seem to really like the "sport" of politics. Who knows? There probably are a few out there among us.
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