The Doctors Who Remain

This is an email I wrote to the executive director of our county medical society as we struggle to accrue participants for this year's Legislative Day.

Good morning Stu,
I'm not sure what time your conference call is today. We have our emergency medical staff meeting this evening at 7pm. Thank you for the buttons. I will give these out as well as the 3/3/9 ones that Barbara sent last week.

I understand that the number of respondents here at JTM and SCH have been less than half of last year. But I must say that the ones who have responded have been well informed and continually passionate. I think what you will have this year is a smaller, more focused, less angry, but also less afraid, a more willing group. If this is what MSSNY expects throughout the state, it should inform the message of the rally. Please convey this on your conference call today:

These are the doctors that are still here. That have witnessed the crisis of access in healthcare firsthand. These are the doctors who have stayed in NYS and kept their practices running amid the pressures of high malpractice costs and shrinking reimbursements as well as the most devastating economic crisis to hit our state and this country in our lifetime. The rest are gone. They left the state, retired early, or have left medicine completely.

The ones who remain are the doctors that still care for you and your loved ones, our patients, whether you are in foreclosure or homeless, in network or out, unemployed or uninsured, these doctors will still take care of you, as they always have.

All around us we see loss and ruin. It is incumbent upon the doctors who remain to use the trust, compassion, stability, and hope built into every doctor-patient relationship they have to reflect these qualities and lead our practices, hospitals, communities, and our legislators here, in Albany, and in Washington, DC to a stronger, safer, healthier future. We are the doctors who remain, and we know what we need to do.

Thanks, Stu, for all your hard work.