Anyone attend the AMA National Meeting in Chicago?

[hurdlepup]

What were your thoughts? Was it your first time?

Plus, congratulations to all who were elected!

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[MilkmanAl]

I attended last year's, and it was awesome. That's mostly because I totally ignored the utterly worthless med student section debates and listened to the lectures, though. An hour of pointless semantic bullcrap couched in even more pointless, stodgy bureaucracy was about all I could handle. I also made sure to thoroughly enjoy Chicago over the 4 days I was there. I guess the point is that it's an amazing experience if you avoid the policy side of things. The lecturers last year were exceptional.

 

[hurdlepup]

Hmmm... I really enjoyed the ref com.

But then again, I think the way people govern themselves is pretty interesting. Parliamentary procedure is pretty fascinating to me--especially since the alternatives include dictatorship.

p.s. ref com is not bureaucracy, its more like a legislative session that sets the official policy of the AMA-MSS, in order to set the policy and agenda of the AMA, which ideally would be working to influence national legislation affecting medicine..

p.p.s almost forgot to add... yes, the chicago scene was pretty awesome as well and a reason for going!

 

[Chuck's Right Foot]

I ditto the previous poster. I went as a delegate and hit a few of the lectures. I also am a ParliPro geek. Great times. Most schools provide some sort of travel grant, so I highly suggest people hit the Interim meeting in Cali this year.

 

[MilkmanAl]

It's a lot harder to get interested in what's going on when the AMA rep tells you that the MSS proceedings are summarily ignored in the real AMA and the morning's business consists of hashing out language in a bill that the speaker introduces as something that needs to be ironed out so it can be voted down. I'll stick to the lecturers.

 

[hurdlepup]

I am still new to all this, and I have heard as much. Still, a few things interest me in the whole process.

1) Seeing how our national organization governs itself.

2) Learning about how to affect the change within the AMA that is needed.

3) Finding out how the things we talked about translate into what the AMA actually does.

On the last one, I am going to talk with one of the student delegates to the HOD, and see how they felt it went. I don't think EVERYTHING done is the MSS is actually ignored, but I will wait and see.

Also, it was nice to talk with our state AMA chapter president, who has been spending lots of time in our state capital fighting scope creep from a number of non-physician healthcare providers. He was very much interested in what we had to say, and we were likewise interested in his thoughts.

I agree though, there were some good talks! I was a little under the weather, and hope to attend more next year if I can coordinate my Step 1 schedule accordingly.

 

[cuporsche]

Yeah, this was my first AMA MSS experience as well. I am really not a huge fan of ParPro, but I'm glad some people are. Personally I find going outside the "typical" channels allows me greater influence / understanding. And found it especially frustrating in that most everything we do in the MSS is not taken very seriously by the general AMA.

That being said - the small lectures were AWESOME - I learned a lot, met some really cool people, and colleagues who seem to be doing something with their lives (always good to keep in touch). And, I don't care what anybody says but Chicago is the greatest city in the WORLD, esp since it's where I grew up!

 

[Raryn]

I was there, and I found the whole thing to be pretty interesting. The reference committee testimony was an interesting experience, so were all of the various lectures and educational sessions. Also, the reception and the social events afterwords alone could be reason enough to go. The actual assembly session does get a little tedious sometimes, but parliamentary procedure is fascinating when done right.

I might go to the one in San Diego in November too (I <3 San Diego, and the meeting was a good time)

 

[caliprincess]

I was there and had an awesome time, as usual. Things got really interesting during the AMA HOD meeting. I think every medical student should try to stay for at least one HOD meeting if they can (it begins after the MSS meeting).

 

[hurdlepup]

Was there a point of contention?

What happened?

 

[QuaerensIntelle]

I was there. I was pleasantly surprised. It was really interesting and completely changed my whole viewpoint on AMA-MSS as being a worthwhile investment of my time. Listening to the debate was surprisingly more interesting than I thought it would be although I believe what the previous posters have mentioned about it being largely ignored (based on how I would probably view it if I was a AMA delegate).

 

[theVster]

I was not there, however the chief of neurosurgery at our school, Dr. Carmel, is now president-elect!