Map of life expectancy at birth from Global Education Project.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Dr. Fell

I don't know why I didn't get hip to this before, but it seems there is now an association of physicians dedicated to overturning regulations to prevent drug companies from bribing doctors. They're having a conference today at a Major Teaching Hospital of the World's Greatest University. It seems they believe that medical progress depends on their being allowed to accept honoraria, free meals, resort vacations, and baseball tickets from Merck and Pfizer. The Institute of Medicine believes otherwise.

I will only note that this new group's definition of physician-industry cooperation is that industry gives them money and things of value. The IOM, medical schools, and academic medical centers are not opposed to industry-sponsored research, they just want doctors to get paid only for doing actual work, and to disclose their financial ties to drug companies. These greedheads will just have to live with that.

In other news, you have likely already heard about Dr. David McKalip, a Florida neurosurgeon who founded Doctors for Patient Freedom, which asserts that if you have health insurance, you are not free. It seems he sent a racist photoshopped image of president Obama to his teabagging friends. C. Corax did a little further digging and found out that McKalip sued to try to get out of reporting his surgical infection rates to the state. Your god given right to toxic shock syndrome. He is is also opposed to all quality assurance measures or any form of accountability for physicians, and to Medicare and Medicaid, neither of which he accepts. I got news for you doc -- I very much doubt that you give a shit about your patients, except as a source of income.

4 comments:

C. Corax said...

Damn! We collaborate at work all the freakin' time and we don't need gifts for the collaborations to be fruitful. This whole healthcare debate has been eye-opening, listening to greedy bastards trying to rationalize their greed without ever admitting that what motivates them is greed.

I wanted to throw something at the radio last night listening to Obama. He kept talking about how great his health care is. Why didn't he ever talk about how great the health coverage is for members of Congress? Why didn't he explain how that's paid for? Why didn't he talk about the health care rationing for children that's happening in CA right now?

He's too *&^%#@! nice.

AMA said...

Delegates to the American Medical Association are selected through their individual state and specialty societies, and their individual views and actions do not, in any way, represent the official view of the AMA. We condemn any actions or comments that are racist, discriminatory or unprofessional.
-American Medical Association

Cervantes said...

Yes, I'm aware of that, which is why I steered clear of the AMA angle in the post. However, I do try to make it clear to my readers that the AMA predominantly works to serve the interests, principally the financial interests, of its member physicians. It has not historically been an advocate for public health or for a medical institution that serves the public interest.

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