Why don't we give more to our PAC?

[Andrew_Doan]

---

Members don't see this ad.

At the recent Mid-Year Forum, I learned that on average, physicians give less than $100 each to their political action committees (PAC). Less than 15% of ophthalmologists give to their PAC. This is horrible. How are we to be politically strong when physicians are not financially supporthing their own PAC? Other professional groups give at least one log unit more than us.

I gave $100 as a resident this year again, how much did you give?


http://www.eyeorbit.org/article.php?story=20050410060801157

 

[rubensan]

At the recent Mid-Year Forum, I learned that on average, physicians give less than $100 each to their political action committees (PAC). Less than 15% of ophthalmologists give to their PAC. This is horrible. How are we to be politically strong when physicians are not financially supporthing their own PAC? Other professional groups give at least one log unit more than us.

I gave $100 as a resident this year again, how much did you give?


http://www.eyeorbit.org/article.php?story=20050410060801157

Dear colleagues:
I don't know about the rest of you, but last weeks' SDN debates got me thinking A LOT about life after residency and the challenges that face our field. For all of you who matched into ophtho this past January, congratulations! But what next? The general concensus last week was that medical school and ophtho residency are great accomplishments! But I think Aaron M. Miller, an ophtho resident at Baylor said it best when he posted the following on eyeorbit.org, "Our medical school training does not place enough emphasis on the politics of medicine and as such, the average physician does not spend the time on these issues."

Andrew is right, why don't we give more to our PAC? To be honest, I wasn't even sure what a PAC was until I started reading these posts and looking on the American Academy of Ophthalmology's website. 😱 And there are other ways we can get involved, now and in the future. Did you know that between April 6-7th more than 220 ophthalmologists came to Capitol Hill to make their voices heard at the Academy’s eighth annual Advocacy Day. (I didn't even know there was an advocacy day). There were more than 250 meetings with members of Congress and their staffs that focused on the Academy’s four top legislative issues:

1. Stopping the 2006 Medicare cuts and fixing the flawed SGR payment formula
2. Regulating plano contact lenses as medical devices
3. Ensuring children’s access to vision care through appropriate screening
4. Reinforcing the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) directive limiting all eye surgery performed in VA hospitals to ophthalmologists?

Although some arguments made last week were more tactfully stated than others, I was impressed with the passion of a lot of members on this forum. Although debating the differences between optom and ophtho training is entertaining and informative, I think we should also put that passion into political action. Once we are members of AAO, Did you know that we can become congressional advocates to promote the interests of ophthalmologists and their patients before the U.S. Congress?

See the following link: http://capwiz.com/aao/issues/alert/?alertid=3146556

Even now, we can do what Dr. Doan frequently suggests, write letters to our representatives and have our views heard. You better believe that I wrote my first one this weekend.

Say what you want about ODs, but they accomplished what they accomplished in OK by being a politically active bunch who dumped a lot of $ into their PACs. Let's be no different and get involved!

Look forward to working with you guys in the future! 👍

Ruben
"We need to focus our attention on training medical students and residents on the importance of "being involved". -Aaron H. Miller, Baylor

 

[Ceremony]

We really should get involved politically at the resident level. I think the issue is that most people in medical school and medical residency are so involved with their training, that they would rather not focus on these political issues, but these very issues will eventually encroach on our ability to practice. I think that academia is a little more buffered than private practice, but it still is important. For example, we should think about getting more funding for the National Eye Institute, and NIH money in general for research. We really should put our heads together about this when I head back to LA. I feel pretty strongly about this issue, and my own political apathy gets me pretty irked. I think if we put the same amount of effort that we put in our academic advancement towards our political advancement,we really could make a change.

Dear colleagues:
I don't know about the rest of you, but last weeks' SDN debates got me thinking A LOT about life after residency and the challenges that face our field. For all of you who matched into ophtho this past January, congratulations! But what next? The general concensus last week was that medical school and ophtho residency are great accomplishments! But I think Aaron M. Miller, an ophtho resident at Baylor said it best when he posted the following on eyeorbit.org, "Our medical school training does not place enough emphasis on the politics of medicine and as such, the average physician does not spend the time on these issues."

Andrew is right, why don't we give more to our PAC? To be honest, I wasn't even sure what a PAC was until I started reading these posts and looking on the American Academy of Ophthalmology's website. 😱 And there are other ways we can get involved, now and in the future. Did you know that between April 6-7th more than 220 ophthalmologists came to Capitol Hill to make their voices heard at the Academy’s eighth annual Advocacy Day. (I didn't even know there was an advocacy day). There were more than 250 meetings with members of Congress and their staffs that focused on the Academy’s four top legislative issues:

1. Stopping the 2006 Medicare cuts and fixing the flawed SGR payment formula
2. Regulating plano contact lenses as medical devices
3. Ensuring children’s access to vision care through appropriate screening
4. Reinforcing the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) directive limiting all eye surgery performed in VA hospitals to ophthalmologists?

Although some arguments made last week were more tactfully stated than others, I was impressed with the passion of a lot of members on this forum. Although debating the differences between optom and ophtho training is entertaining and informative, I think we should also put that passion into political action. Once we are members of AAO, Did you know that we can become congressional advocates to promote the interests of ophthalmologists and their patients before the U.S. Congress?

See the following link: http://capwiz.com/aao/issues/alert/?alertid=3146556

Even now, we can do what Dr. Doan frequently suggests, write letters to our representatives and have our views heard. You better believe that I wrote my first one this weekend.

Say what you want about ODs, but they accomplished what they accomplished in OK by being a politically active bunch who dumped a lot of $ into their PACs. Let's be no different and get involved!

Look forward to working with you guys in the future! 👍

Ruben
"We need to focus our attention on training medical students and residents on the importance of "being involved". -Aaron H. Miller, Baylor

 

[Andrew_Doan]

Ruben,

Thanks for your post! Your voice does make a difference. Use it. I forwarded your post to leaders in the Academy and these are their responses:

"Those are great thoughts. I forwarded this to the Chairman, Program Director and all the residents. "

"This is awesome Andy....Thx for your efforts...."

eyeOrbit has been officially launched and advertised. We are getting more ophthalmologists to give their opinions! See this blog:

http://www.eyeorbit.org/article.php?story=20050410060801157

This was the Academy Express send out to 27,000 Academy Members:


Enter the blogosphere with the Academy’s eyeOrbit

EyeOrbit is an online resource that allows ophthalmologists and members in training to share their experiences and interests via blogs as well as in public and private forums. The blogs are not opinions of or statements by the Academy, but are the opinions of individual authors. Thanks to the vision of Andrew Doan, MD, the Web site’s executive editor, eyeOrbit now boasts an Ophthalmic Case Archive which, compared to paper journals, allows for a wider and faster dissemination of information. It’s also free and searchable. Cases are linked together by a centralized index, allowing easy access, organization, and search functions. About 100 cases are currently indexed and three ophthalmology programs are participating: the University of Iowa, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, and the University of Arkansas. As more institutions contribute, the value of the eyeOrbit case index will increase, and participating institutions will see increased traffic to their Web sites.

 

[rubensan]

We really should get involved politically at the resident level. I think the issue is that most people in medical school and medical residency are so involved with their training, that they would rather not focus on these political issues, but these very issues will eventually encroach on our ability to practice. I think that academia is a little more buffered than private practice, but it still is important. For example, we should think about getting more funding for the National Eye Institute, and NIH money in general for research. We really should put our heads together about this when I head back to LA. I feel pretty strongly about this issue, and my own political apathy gets me pretty irked. I think if we put the same amount of effort that we put in our academic advancement towards our political advancement,we really could make a change.

👍 sounds good "ceremony"! looking forward to working with you in a year or so!

Ruben