Contact the AMA!

[IcedGreenTea]

To all medical students, residents, and attendings. We need to address the nurses' expanding "scope of practice" issues that have been running rampant over the past several years. Here's a template you can use to contact the AMA (originally by JaggerPlate). The word limit is actually quite low, but this should get the point across.

The AMA site is:
https://extapps.ama-assn.org/contactus/contactusMain.do

To Whom It May Concern,

I am exceedingly concerned with the expanding rights and privileges of nurse practitioners. They intend to promote themselves as "doctors" in a clinical setting, with twenty-eight states now considering an expansion of nurse practitioner rights and privileges. Nurse practitioners desire independent practice, prescription rights, and even Medicare reimbursement at physician rates. This "expansion of scope" is a threat to medical students, residents, attending physicians, and, most importantly, unsuspecting patients. Personally, I believe this expansion will continue into various medical fields, and as a powerful, physician interest group, I urge you to help protect physician rights, patient safety, and the practice of ethical medicine. Thank you for your time.

Respectfully,

Your name

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[JaggerPlate]

To all medical students, residents, and attendings. We need to address the nurses' expanding "scope of practice" issues that have been running rampant over the past several years. Here's a template you can use to contact the AMA (originally by JaggerPlate). The word limit is actually quite low, but this should get the point across.

The AMA site is:
https://extapps.ama-assn.org/contactus/contactusMain.do

To Whom It May Concern,

I am exceedingly concerned with the expanding rights and privileges of nurse practitioners. They intend to promote themselves as "doctors" in a clinical setting, with twenty-eight states now considering an expansion of nurse practitioner rights and privileges. Nurse practitioners desire independent practice, prescription rights, and even Medicare reimbursement at physician rates. This "expansion of scope" is a threat to medical students, residents, attending physicians, and, most importantly, unsuspecting patients. Personally, I believe this expansion will continue into various medical fields, and as a powerful, physician interest group, I urge you to help protect physician rights, patient safety, and the practice of ethical medicine. Thank you for your time.

Respectfully,

Your name

Nicely done! I approve 👍 and urge people to contact as MANY organizations as possible.

 

[dude1344]

👍 bump

 

[Law2Doc]

Nicely done! I approve 👍 and urge people to contact as MANY organizations as possible.

Highlighting this to conservative media outlets and tying it as one of the travesties of the current healthcare plan might be more effective. With the AMA you are trying to make a dog with no teeth a ferocious guard dog.

 

[badasshairday]

Highlighting this to conservative media outlets and tying it as one of the travesties of the current healthcare plan might be more effective. With the AMA you are trying to make a dog with no teeth a ferocious guard dog.

CONTACT 'THE O'REILLY FACTOR'

O'Reilly Factor - Contact Page

Want to tell Bill what's on your mind? Keep it pithy! E-mail us at: [email protected].
Also, you can call "The Radio Factor" live on the air at 1-877-9-NO-SPIN (877-966-7746) weekdays from noon to 2 p.m. ET

 

[startswithb]

CONTACT 'THE O'REILLY FACTOR'

O'Reilly Factor - Contact Page

Want to tell Bill what's on your mind? Keep it pithy! E-mail us at: [email protected].
Also, you can call "The Radio Factor" live on the air at 1-877-9-NO-SPIN (877-966-7746) weekdays from noon to 2 p.m. ET

I just emailed O'Reilly.

 

[tony montana]

I've contacted the AMA and O'reilly

 

[Rokitansky]

Highlighting this to conservative media outlets and tying it as one of the travesties of the current healthcare plan might be more effective. With the AMA you are trying to make a dog with no teeth a ferocious guard dog.

This will only serve to polarize the issue. This is not a conservative or liberal issue, this is a patient safety and quality of medical practice issue. We should be able to convince people all along the political spectrum to support this cause and should not start out by alienating more than half of the people in the United States a priori.

I am bewildered by the need of some people to make everything into conservatives vs. liberals.

If we are going to pin our argument on the current health care plan, let's find ways to frame it that will appeal to all sensible human beings. It is many people's contention that the health care plan will create a physician shortage, so it should be easy to point out to those people that it will also create a nursing shortage, therefore diverting nurses to do doctors' work will only make the nursing shortage worse. Many people supported health care reform because they believe that no citizen of this great country should die because they cannot see a doctor in this 21st century. It should be easy to convince those people that since they were fighting for high quality, competent care for all Americans, they should be up in arms at the thought of vast numbers of Americans receiving sub-par care from non-physicians. There are many people who wanted health care reform because they want to contain health care costs. We should be able to get their support by pointing out that medical errors are extremely costly, and while physicians certainly make mistakes, less trained providers are more likely to make even more mistakes, thus driving up costs.

I have never met a liberal person who wanted sub-par health care for anybody. On the contrary, most of them want equal access to high quality health care for everyone.

If you choose to associate yourself with only one segment of the population, which is currently not even the majority segment, you paint yourself into a corner.

People need to dial back the divisive animosity. We are talking about human beings here. Blue, black, purple, red, green, whatever the party, skin color, religion, etc. medicine should be uniting not dividing us, because ultimately disease is the great equalizer. We all bleed profusely from a punctured femoral artery, we all get short of breath from a tension pneumo, and a cancer diagnosis strikes fear into all our hearts the same way. Let's look for ways to get as many Americans to support high quality medical care and their physicians as possible. Let's not marginalize ourselves.

 

[Law2Doc]

...
I am bewildered by the need of some people to make everything into conservatives vs. liberals. ...

First, I'm not a conservative. Never voted conservative, can't stand the Limbaughs and Colters and Hannitys and O'Reilly's of the world. But I see a big benefit in using media outlets that are going to be biased to a particular point of view because you are likely to get on the air in a big way. Trying to be a "rich physician" trying to beat up on the poor caring nurse won't play well over the airwaves when you try to use logic to convince people that healthcare is in danger. The public sees a bunch of white coats fighting with eachother and frankly has no idea how much training a DNP has compared to an MD or DO or other acronyms. All they know is this person calls themselves a board certified doctor and can see them on short order. So trying to convince people about patient safety or quality of care is going to fall on deaf ears. Trying to convince people that the Obama plan incorporates death panels, etc has wide mass appeal. You need to ride on that kind of wave, despicable though it may be.

Second, the Obama plan basically embraces this NP in lieu of physician concept as the logical step to create increased healthcare capacity once more people are insured. It's naive to think you are going to get the same kind of coverage on CNN, (who, by the way already has run many an article about the benefits of non-physician healthcare providers). But I promise you that if you spin it as a "dangerous flaw of the healthcare plan" you are going to get a media blitz. And for a profession that seems content to sit on its hands while the lucrative aspects of the field get sopped up by the ancillary professionals, I think a blitz isn't a bad idea.

 

[startswithb]

Sounds good. So who are you contacting?

This will only serve to polarize the issue. This is not a conservative or liberal issue, this is a patient safety and quality of medical practice issue. We should be able to convince people all along the political spectrum to support this cause and should not start out by alienating more than half of the people in the United States a priori.

I am bewildered by the need of some people to make everything into conservatives vs. liberals.

If we are going to pin our argument on the current health care plan, let's find ways to frame it that will appeal to all sensible human beings. It is many people's contention that the health care plan will create a physician shortage, so it should be easy to point out to those people that it will also create a nursing shortage, therefore diverting nurses to do doctors' work will only make the nursing shortage worse. Many people supported health care reform because they believe that no citizen of this great country should die because they cannot see a doctor in this 21st century. It should be easy to convince those people that since they were fighting for high quality, competent care for all Americans, they should be up in arms at the thought of vast numbers of Americans receiving sub-par care from non-physicians. There are many people who wanted health care reform because they want to contain health care costs. We should be able to get their support by pointing out that medical errors are extremely costly, and while physicians certainly make mistakes, less trained providers are more likely to make even more mistakes, thus driving up costs.

I have never met a liberal person who wanted sub-par health care for anybody. On the contrary, most of them want equal access to high quality health care for everyone.

If you choose to associate yourself with only one segment of the population, which is currently not even the majority segment, you paint yourself into a corner.

People need to dial back the divisive animosity. We are talking about human beings here. Blue, black, purple, red, green, whatever the party, skin color, religion, etc. medicine should be uniting not dividing us, because ultimately disease is the great equalizer. We all bleed profusely from a punctured femoral artery, we all get short of breath from a tension pneumo, and a cancer diagnosis strikes fear into all our hearts the same way. Let's look for ways to get as many Americans to support high quality medical care and their physicians as possible. Let's not marginalize ourselves.

 

[Rokitansky]

Another thought...

To get the more liberal segment of the population on board, it should be argued that allowing this unregulated "free market" takeover of medicine by NPs is an ultra-capitalistic approach (if you really think about it). Essentially right now we have regulations in place that do not allow anyone other than people who have attended medical school, passed licensing examinations and completed a residency to practice medicine. Essentially, this NP movement is looking to overturn the existing regulations and to lower the barrier to practicing medicine. We can certainly draw parallels between banking deregulation and this medical deregulation. We saw what happened when there was deregulation in the banking industry and banks were allowed to expand their "scope of practice" into areas that were traditionally not open to them. Allowing nurses to expand their scope is similar deregulation of medicine... so liberals should be trying just as hard to squash this.

Again, basically, this hurts everybody and that is how we need to present it. We need to get EVERYONE on board.

 

[Law2Doc]

...
I have never met a liberal person who wanted sub-par health care for anybody. On the contrary, most of them want equal access to high quality health care for everyone....

I think someone needs to educate themselves a bit more about the healthcare plan we are moving forward with, and the expansion of the role of NPs and ancillary professionals in light of the reality that all Americans will be insured. That means more people are going to be seeing non-doctors. This is PART of the plan, and yes FWIW that does mean some people are going to get "sub par healthcare". This plan wasn't drawn up with the medical profession in mind, and as a result, we got run over. And so while perhaps the folks passing the plan want everyone to get high quality health care, they seem to think they can do that without everyone seeing highly trained healthcare providers. That's where the disconnect is, and yes, I think it's kind of hard to make this point without attacking aspects of the healthcare plan, which sort of means it will fall on deaf ears for one party's backers. It's not me whos suggesting backing into a corner, or even siding with conservatives. I'm just saying if you want to get this issue out there, and fast, you have a ready venue that will eat it up. And that's my point -- give these idiots the ammunition and let them fight our war for us if we as a profession really want to sit on our hands (as is pretty apparent). It's not a liberal vs conservative argument, it's a mercenary argument. The partisan fight is already out there, we just need to feed in our issue.

 

[Rokitansky]

Sounds good. So who are you contacting?

I have family and friends in one of the states that is looking at this NP expansion, so I have sent them information and bullet-point lists for contacting their state legislators. I have also contacted the state's medical association and expressed concern because I want to ensure that the quality of health care that my family and others receive in their state remains high. I am a medical student, so I don't know what else I can do, but I am definitely open to suggestions.

 

[tony montana]

Rokitansky

Your thoughts sound nice, but, as explained by Law2doc I doubt they're currently realistic...


On another note, I got a reply from the AMA...this is the kind of BULL answer one can expect from the AMA on this issue:


Dear XXXXXX:

Thank you for contacting the American Medical Association (AMA) regarding your concerns about the expanding rights and privileges of Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants.

Nurse practitioners are valuable members of the health care team, but there are clear differences in the education and training of a physician and a nurse.

Some scope of practice expansions may be appropriate, others certainly are not. The AMA is committed to ensuring the additional years of training and experience physicians undertake is recognized in order to maintain the highest standard of medical care in the United States.

Since scope of practice efforts vary by state, please contact your state medical society for the most up-to-date information on expansion efforts in your state.


Sincerely,

XXX XXXXX
Customer Service Representative
American Medical Association

 

[Rokitansky]

I think someone needs to educate themselves a bit more about the healthcare plan we are moving forward with, and the expansion of the role of NPs and ancillary professionals in light of the reality that all Americans will be insured. That means more people are going to be seeing non-doctors. This is PART of the plan, and yes FWIW that does mean some people are going to get "sub par healthcare". This plan wasn't drawn up with the medical profession in mind, and as a result, we got run over. And so while perhaps the folks passing the plan want everyone to get high quality health care, they seem to think they can do that without everyone seeing highly trained healthcare providers. That's where the disconnect is, and yes, I think it's kind of hard to make this point without attacking aspects of the healthcare plan, which sort of means it will fall on deaf ears for one party's backers. It's not me whos suggesting backing into a corner, or even siding with conservatives. I'm just saying if you want to get this issue out there, and fast, you have a ready venue that will eat it up. And that's my point -- give these idiots the ammunition and let them fight our war for us if we as a profession really want to sit on our hands (as is pretty apparent). It's not a liberal vs conservative argument, it's a mercenary argument. The partisan fight is already out there, we just need to feed in our issue.

I agree with all the points you have made except for the last one. I don't think marginalizing ourselves is a good way to go and I think there has to be a third option between sitting on our hands and aligning ourselves exclusively with the extreme right wing.

Almost all of the liberals I know are not exactly thrilled with the health care bill. Their attitude is that something had to be done, and if this was the best we could do now, then we had to do it. So if we present this in a cogent and well-reasoned and well-supported way, there will be many ears open to hearing us on both sides of the spectrum. There will always be knit-wits on both sides who cannot tell a carrot from a popsicle, but hopefully we will have enough support from reasonable people everywhere to reach critical mass.

 

[Law2Doc]

CONTACT 'THE O'REILLY FACTOR'

O'Reilly Factor - Contact Page

Want to tell Bill what's on your mind? Keep it pithy! E-mail us at: [email protected].
Also, you can call "The Radio Factor" live on the air at 1-877-9-NO-SPIN (877-966-7746) weekdays from noon to 2 p.m. ET

You can also email Sean Hannity at Fox News is at:
[email protected].

Glenn Beck at Fox News is at:
[email protected]

Rush Limbaugh is at:
[email protected]

 

[Winged Scapula]

Rokitansky

Your thoughts sound nice, but, as explained by Law2doc I doubt they're currently realistic...


On another note, I got a reply from the AMA...this is the kind of BULL answer one can expect from the AMA on this issue:


Dear XXXXXX:

Thank you for contacting the American Medical Association (AMA) regarding your concerns about the expanding rights and privileges of Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants.

Nurse practitioners are valuable members of the health care team, but there are clear differences in the education and training of a physician and a nurse.

Some scope of practice expansions may be appropriate, others certainly are not. The AMA is committed to ensuring the additional years of training and experience physicians undertake is recognized in order to maintain the highest standard of medical care in the United States.

Since scope of practice efforts vary by state, please contact your state medical society for the most up-to-date information on expansion efforts in your state.


Sincerely,

XXX XXXXX
Customer Service Representative
American Medical Association

Interesting. Did you see the responses to me and another user from the AMA's Legal Counsel? A fair bit different (which I would expect Customer Service to give the 'party line").

 

[mig26x]

Interesting. Did you see the responses to me and another user from the AMA's Legal Counsel? A fair bit different (which I would expect Customer Service to give the 'party line").

In other words they clean their hands out of this mess!!!

 

[UMED122]

I don't think marginalizing ourselves is a good way to go and I think there has to be a third option between sitting on our hands and aligning ourselves exclusively with the extreme right wing.

Not to speak for Law2Doc, but I don't think he was suggesting aligning ourselves exclusively with one party. Rather, I think he's suggesting that we send our message to the ones that are most willing and able to get that message out. Put it this way, would a liberal media outlet be as willing to drive home legit criticism that could negatively effect the Democrats? On the other hand, because that message has some real substance, as a response I'd also expect pressure from Democrats to tweak the plan so that it is more palatable to everyone. The strategy might be polarizing initially, but I think that with time, most politicians (and people) would come around.

 

[Law2Doc]

Not to speak for Law2Doc, but I don't think he was suggesting aligning ourselves exclusively with one party. Rather, I think he's suggesting that we send our message to the ones that are most willing and able to get that message out. Put it this way, would a liberal media outlet be as willing to drive home legit criticism that could negatively effect the Democrats? On the other hand, because that message has some real substance, as a response I'd also expect pressure from Democrats to tweak the plan so that it is more palatable to everyone. The strategy might be polarizing initially, but I think that with time, most politicians (and people) would come around.

Exactly.

 

[medicinesux]

How sad that we have to resort to emailing Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh and not the utterly useless AMA to try to get our voices heard. 😡

 

[Law2Doc]

How sad that we have to resort to emailing Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh and not the utterly useless AMA to try to get our voices heard. 😡

As you said, our organizations are utterly useless. They will send you a nice form letter and not do squat. Beggars can't be choosers. You either want your message delivered, or you don't. And some ***** with a TV show and an agenda is the quickest avenue to the public ear.

 

[southerndoc]

At least some of you got replies from the AMA. I'm assuming they are inundated with emails because I didn't get a response (even though I'm a member).

 

[mig26x]

At least some of you got replies from the AMA. I'm assuming they are inundated with emails because I didn't get a response (even though I'm a member).

I didnt get a reply but Im not a member. I know of non-members getting reply because they posted it here.

 

[JaggerPlate]

^^ I emailed the AMA over a week ago ... said I'd get a reply within 1-2 business days. No reply.

Hopefully it means they're swamped with these.

 

[maceo]

First, I'm not a conservative. Never voted conservative, can't stand the Limbaughs and Colters and Hannitys and O'Reilly's of the world. But I see a big benefit in using media outlets that are going to be biased to a particular point of view because you are likely to get on the air in a big way. Trying to be a "rich physician" trying to beat up on the poor caring nurse won't play well over the airwaves when you try to use logic to convince people that healthcare is in danger. The public sees a bunch of white coats fighting with eachother and frankly has no idea how much training a DNP has compared to an MD or DO or other acronyms. All they know is this person calls themselves a board certified doctor and can see them on short order. So trying to convince people about patient safety or quality of care is going to fall on deaf ears. Trying to convince people that the Obama plan incorporates death panels, etc has wide mass appeal. You need to ride on that kind of wave, despicable though it may be.

Second, the Obama plan basically embraces this NP in lieu of physician concept as the logical step to create increased healthcare capacity once more people are insured. It's naive to think you are going to get the same kind of coverage on CNN, (who, by the way already has run many an article about the benefits of non-physician healthcare providers). But I promise you that if you spin it as a "dangerous flaw of the healthcare plan" you are going to get a media blitz. And for a profession that seems content to sit on its hands while the lucrative aspects of the field get sopped up by the ancillary professionals, I think a blitz isn't a bad idea.

I tend to think anyone with over 5000 posts is not credible and generally dont give the posts any credence but this post was decent and I agree with it.
Obama already has said on many occasions, "I LOVE NURSES" when he was around a bunch of nurses. He also introduced one of the nurses as DR such and such... dont remember when.. early on in the push for healtcare reform.
He also stated when sasha was born... i only saw my obgyn for 10 minutes but my nurse was there the whole time.. when the president is saying that kind of **** its an uphill battle for sure.. so pull out the not so nic,e tactics. i agree..

 

[deleted87716]

I tend to think anyone with over 5000 posts is not credible and generally dont give the posts any credence

What does that have to do with anything...? 😕

 

[Eta Carinae]

I tend to think anyone with over 5000 posts is not credible and generally dont give the posts any credence but this post was decent and I agree with it.
Obama already has said on many occasions, "I LOVE NURSES" when he was around a bunch of nurses. He also introduced one of the nurses as DR such and such... dont remember when.. early on in the push for healtcare reform.
He also stated when sasha was born... i only saw my obgyn for 10 minutes but my nurse was there the whole time.. when the president is saying that kind of **** its an uphill battle for sure.. so pull out the not so nic,e tactics. i agree..

With Maobama, sometimes I cannot tell if its just pure idiocy or consistent pandering to the lowest denominator. I'm convinced it's some combination of both.

I don't know that I've ever been as disappointed/disillusioned by the leadership of this country as I am now. I thought Bush was unsmart, Maobama is lethal, and even worse, he disguises his lethality with this veneer of intellectualism- as if that means anything.

The only hope for medicine going forward is to get this guy out before he does further irreparable damage for the sake of his own political ambition.

Step 1: disband ACORN...check.

If he wants nurses in charge of his wife's obstetric care, so be it. He has no right to force subpar care on the rest of us.

 

[FMD212]

I did my part and emailed AMA. I also emailed my senator about how I feel about this, in case this thing becomes nationwide.

I don't understand, if they wanted to be called docs or act like a one, why they didn't go to med school then residency like us

 

[drdavemd]

This is a huge issue that the AMA is highly aware of, but remember that the regulation of health professions is a state by state process. The AMA does a great deal to help out, but ultimately each attempt at expanded scope of practice for NP's, nurse anesthetists, optometrists, psychologists, naturopaths, homeopaths, acupuncturists, DNP's and so on must be challenged in state legislatures.

For more info, look at the Advocacy Resource Center (ARC) on the AMA website.

http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/advocacy/centers-engaged-advocacy/advocacy-resource-center.shtml

The ARC literally tracks HUNDREDS of bills every year on scope of practice. You can see each one, and which ones are affecting your state on their website.

Dave
AMA Member

 

[Charles_Carmichael]

Haven't received any reply back from the AMA yet. I also emailed my NP/DNP vs MD curricula comparison to the author of that Nurses Masquerading as Doctors article in the hope that he might be able to use that info in a future article. Hopefully, I'll hear back from him soon, but I'm not holding my breath.