Call/write your Congressperson now!--Healthcare Reform vote in a few hours...

1min now! Crunch time! Call your Representative & Senators:
Easy steps through Doctors for America here; or, if you're not a physician/medical student, also easy to find steps to call your Representative here.  Also, SPREAD THE WORD.

Here's a quick animation (just ignore the bad repititious music...) that very effectively illustrates why we are in dire need of this health reform, & what this reform will do: 


At the speech on Friday at George Mason University, this 1-year old voice urging for health care reform--which has so often been meek, confused, and convoluted--seems to have finally matured, and found its clear intelligent populist voice.  See for yourself:


If you've still got interest/energy, and want to see how it went down tonight at a House of Representatives meeting with President Obama, see below.   Washington Post media columnist Howard Kurtz described Obama's address as "the most emotional speech I've ever seen him give."

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Sex in Medicine--& a medical student's reflection

For the second consecutive year, medical students, faculty advisors, and a collaboration of a dozen student clubs at SUNY Downstate organized a series of lectures, discussions, and workshops on a topic often overlooked—and a facet often underserved—within American medicine.  In February, 2010, “Sex in Medicine Week” allowed participants and audience members to explore issues ranging from “Relationships, Sexuality, and Disability,” to sexual assault & the healthcare provider’s role, to the unique experiences of LGBT patients within a healthcare setting.  

What follows is a reflection written after attending a “Sex in Medicine Week” event. The author is a SUNY Downstate 2nd year medical student.

Conscientious Care for the Patient
By Alaina Burns

    Imagine that you and your life partner are about to board a cruise ship for a vacation with your three children when your partner suddenly suffers a massive stroke. Your partner is taken to the nearest hospital, but you are physically denied visitation rights; your partner dies eighteen hours later, and you are allowed entrance to the room only when the priest is reading the final rights.
    …Or imagine that you have been receiving care from your physician for a chronic medical condition, and one day, you happen to mention your partner. Your physician, who has been treating you for over a year, suddenly refuses to write you your next prescription.
    …Or imagine that you are a woman who has been receiving preparatory treatment for in vitro fertilization from the only in-network provider offered by your insurance plan. When, after a year, the staff at the clinic learn about your partner, they subsequently refuse to continue treatment.
    These cases might seem unbelievable, but they are all true; and they all took place in recent years, right here in the United States: in Miami, Washington state and California, respectively.  Welcome to the difficult reality faced by many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) patients who try to navigate the American healthcare system.
   Doctor’s offices and hospitals are often vulnerable spaces for all patients, but they can be particularly unpleasant for people who identify as LGBT. As part of SUNY Downstate’s 2010 “Sex in Medicine Week,” Dr. Maile O’Hara gave a talk, entitled, “Being a Good Doctor for ALL of Your Patients: Specific Needs of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Patients,”* in which she spoke about what medical professionals can do to provide more sensitive care for LGBT patients. Dr. O’Hara, a clinical psychologist at the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture, has worked extensively with the LGBT population.
    Among Dr. O’Hara’s recommendations for healthcare practitioners are these:

• Treat your patients who are LGBT with the same respect with which you treat all patients.
• Recognize that many LGBT people have had negative experiences with the health care system in the past.
• Ensure that your office has a nondiscrimination policy and that decorations and selections of items such as magazines and pamphlets are inclusive of the LGBT community.
• Treat the partners of LGBT patients as you would spouses, even if they are not legally married.

    In an era when most people can rest assured knowing that their civil rights are guaranteed, LGBT individuals, on the other hand, are made aware that discrimination can still lurk in the most unexpected of places. No national anti-discrimination law exists that protects lesbian, gay and transgender people, and among states, only twenty-one and the District of Columbia currently protect individuals from discrimination based on sexual orientation.
    Visiting the doctor, for any person, can often be stressful and scary for various reasons.  But for LGBT people, in an unwelcoming healthcare setting, the experience can be doubly terrifying. Educating yourself and being aware of the unique issues faced by people who are LGBT is the first step in providing conscientious care for all of your patients.

*To view the slides presented during Dr. Maile O’Hara’s talk, given at SUNY Downstate on February 25, 2010, please click on the “LGBT Q&A” link on the top left margin of this page.

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Health Professionals March for Reform, March 22

WHAT: A march on Washington for health reform
WHEN: Monday, March 22, 2010, 11am
WHO: Hundreds of health professionals (doctors, nurses, and more) from across the country
WHY: Our patients need it, our communities need it, our country needs it. A sea of white coats and scrubs on Pennsylvania Ave will give Congress a strong message – we must pass health reform now.
MORE INFO: www.healthmarch.org

Who Are We?

We are health professionals — doctors, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, physicians assistants, and friends of health professionals.

We come from all over the country and one thing unites us: each of us has been touched by the patients we see and the struggles they have faced in our current health care system. This is why we are marching together to fight for the health care reform that we can and must achieve as a nation.
Do we agree on every single aspect of health reform? Of course not. Do we agree that moving forward with health reform will lay the foundation to a better health care system for our patients and for America? Absolutely!

Our patients need better access to care, a regulated insurance industry, improved quality and lower costs. Health professionals know that health reform for our patients and for America is not optional.

That's why we are marching on Washington DC on March 22 — to make sure Congress hears us and gets the job done.

We know. We care. Reform can't wait.

See you on March 22,

 For more details visit www.healthmarch.org.

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Help to spread the Healthcare Reform Facts now!

Help to get the word out on why this healthcare reform is crucial, by printing & posting up fact sheets like this one:

Or, you can also go to that Organizing for America webpage to share many healthcare reform facts via Facebook, Twitter, or email.

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Welcome to Primary Care Week @ Downstate!!!

 (**Speaker Bios below)
Tuesday, November 10th - Primary Care 101

When: Noon to 1 PM
Where: Student Center Main Lounge
FREE Food: Heros/Kosher Sandwiches
Speaker: Dr. Michael Gusmano, Research Director for Alliance for Health & the Future (Dr. Gusmano will be speaking about the growing need for primary care physicians and about public health policy)

Wednesday, November 11th - Faces of Primary Care

When: 5:30 PM to 7 PM
Where: Student Center Main Lounge
FREE Food: Italian/Kosher Sandwiches
Speakers:

Dr. Margaret Golden, Pediatrics Clerkship Director at Downstate

Dr. Heather Paladine, Director of Women's Health at Columbia University Medical Center
Anthony Accurso, 4th Year Medical Student at Downstate

(This is more of a Q&A session - a great opportunity to ask the panelists about their personal experiences in primary care)

Thursday, November 12th - Future of Primary Care

When: 5:30 to 7 PM
Where: Student Center Main Lounge
FREE Food: Thai
Speakers:

Dr. Neil Calman, Family physician and President/CEO of the Institute for Family Health, NY

Lauren Hughes, National President of AMSA

(Dr. Calman will be talking about the future of primary care and how PCPs contribute to the community)

So, come learn more about the unsung heroes of medicine! Hope to see all of you there!!!  (We will also be giving out PRIZES! If you would like Kosher food to be served, please e-mail Regina Finan at Regina.Finan@downstate.edu.)

**Speaker Bios: 

Neil Calman, M.D.
Neil Calman, MD, is president and co-founder of the Institute for Family Health, developing family health centers in the Bronx and Manhattan.  In 2002, the Institute became one of the first community health center networks in the country to implement a fully integrated electronic medical record and practice management system, improving both preventive and chronic care treatment outcomes. In recognition, Dr. Calman received the 2006 Physician's Information Technology Leadership Award, presented annually by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society.  Dr. Calman serves on the Primary Care Health Information Consortium, the NYSDOH's Information Technology Stakeholder Group Planning Committee, is the Chair of the Clinical Committee of the Community Health Care Association of New York State. He has also been appointed to the Health Policy Roundtable of the Aspen Institute, a group charged with delineating the values and principles on which the United States must base its future health care system.

Heather Paladine, M.D.
Heather Paladine, MD, attended Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.  She then completed a residency in Family Medicine at Oregon Health and Science University and went on to do a fellowship in Maternal and Children's Health Care at California Hospital in Los Angeles.  After working in Washington, Oregon, and California, she recently returned to New York City to become faculty at the New York Presbyterian/Columbia University Family Mediciine residency program, where she is Associate Residency Director and Director of Women's Health.

Michael Gusmano, M.A., Ph.D.

Dr. Michael Gusmano is the director of research for the Alliance for Health & the Future and co-director of the World Cities Project at the International Longevity Center-USA. Dr. Gusmano's work has focused on comparing the health status and use of health and social services for older persons. His other research interests include politics of healthcare reform, Medicare, Medicaid, and comparative welfare state analysis. Dr. Gusmano was a senior research associate in the Division of Health and Science Policy at the New York Academy of Medicine.

Margaret Clark-Golden, M.D.
Associate Professor at Downstate Medical Center
Pediatrics Clerkship Director at the Children's Hospital at Downstate

M.D. - Duke University School of Medicine

Residency: Cook County Hospital (Pediatrics) and Michael Reese Hospital Medical Center (Pediatrics)

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Feisty!, fiery!, a.k.a. Anthony Weiner's health care town hall

[Below is an essay published here written by a med student... Read what he now thinks about the impracticality of private insurers, the (un)free market of healthcare, and the 3 words that mock anti-Government conservatives.  Enjoy!]

My name is Cameron Gibson, and I'm an MS1er here at Downstate, and a bit of a closet political junkie.  I spent much of my summer abroad, so when I saw on the news Americans yelling and screaming about something, I assumed that the Yankees had just lost a pivotal game.  When I found out that in fact people were yelling and screaming about health care reform, my interest was peaked.  I couldn’t learn much from the regular media sources (who can?) about these “town hall meetings”, so I thought I should experience one for myself.  So, with my white coat in hand and a bottle of anti-anxiety pills at the ready, I set off to Rep. Anthony Weiner’s town hall meeting last Tuesday.  Suffice it to say, I had to down the entire bottle by the end of the night!...
...and through it all I sat quietly listening to what Rep. Weiner and the audience had to say.  It was exciting, it was scary, but most of all, it was eye-opening.  
Read Cameron Gibson's full essay...

My name is Cameron Gibson, I’m an MS1er here at Downstate, and a bit of a closet political junkie.  I spent much of my summer abroad, so when I saw on the news Americans yelling and screaming about something, I assumed that the Yankees had just lost a pivotal game.  When I found out that in fact people were yelling and screaming about health care reform, my interest was peaked.  I couldn’t learn much from the regular media sources (who can?) about these “town hall meetings”, so I thought I should experience one for myself.  So, with my white coat in hand and a bottle of anti-anxiety pills at the ready, I set off to Rep. Anthony Weiner’s town hall meeting last Tuesday.  Suffice it to say, I had to down the entire bottle by the end of the night!

Now, I feel I must point out the author’s inherent bias.  Since learning anything about the American healthcare system, I’ve always known that something was wrong.  I’m a firm believer that healthcare is an inalienable right, on the same level as freedom of speech and religion.  However, I went to Rep. Weiner’s meeting a skeptic of the “single-payer option”.  After hearing Rep. Weiner--a major supporter of a single-payer system--present his argument, I was practically a convert:

• Private insurers have gargantuan 20-40%! overhead costs. Medicare and Medicaid have ~4% overhead cost.  Therefore, that alone in a single-payer system = a savings of ~$300 billion.   
• A single-payer option is one of the best ways to insure the 47+ million Americans who are currently uninsured.
  
  

Now you’re probably saying, “Wait a minute, there are a number of reasons why we shouldn’t throw out our current system.”  Well, you’re not alone in making this argument.  In fact, there were many people--not even including the folks outside who handed out flyers of Obama’s face with a Hitler-mustache…!--there who were vehemently opposed to healthcare reform, and they made themselves known early in the evening (I think my grandmother in Oregon even heard them!). 

I would now like to elucidate a few of the arguments I heard that night against current health reform W/ the public option, and show why they are inherently flawed:

We can’t afford to reform healthcare!

In fact-and Weiner said this as well-We can’t afford NOT to!

• We currently spend more in real dollars and % GDP on healthcare than most western countries 
• but we are only ranked 37th worldwide by the WHO for quality of healthcare (if you went to Morocco you would receive better care!).   
• While more and more of us can’t afford our healthcare, private insurance continues to bring in astronomical profits year after year.  As things stand, they have no incentive to change the system, If there ever is a dip in their profit margin, all they have to do is raise the premium on their customers and the coffers are refilled! 
  
  

So, without the government stepping in in some form, whether through regulation or outlawing certain practices, we are currently set on a path of economic implosion solely from healthcare costs.

But we are a capitalist society, let the market fix the problem!

Without even mentioning the obvious example of 2008, it has been proven that the market cannot fix all of life’s problems.  Without the government, there would be no freeways, no electrical grid, no public school system (a blessing and a curse, for some), or Medicare/Medicaid (opponents sometimes conveniently forget that these are in fact government programs). 

Regarding healthcare, capitalism is not the most effective economic model because it reduces healthcare to a commodity, equal to insuring your belongings (i.e. renter’s insurance).  This ignores the fact that when someone gets seriously sick and their survival is in question, they can’t just choose not to seek medical help because they don’t feel like it (well, they could, but it would run against their Darwinian instincts).  If my TV is stolen and I don’t have insurance, I’m out a TV, whereas if I’m diagnosed with a curable cancer but have no insurance to pay for it, I either lose my life or go bankrupt (and so do my wife, siblings, parents, grandparents, etc.).  Viewing healthcare as a commodity ignores the reality & human side of healthcare.

The Government is wasteful and does a poor job of running national programs.

3 words: Med-i-care.  Ask anyone over the age of 65 with Medicare how they think the government is doing with their healthcare, and 96% of them will say they’re doing a DAMN good job!  (I’m almost certain that no other health insurance company can brag about such high customer satisfaction).

(This last point has less to do with current proposals for health reform being considered--i.e. Health Insurance Reform W/ the Public Option—and instead is only in response to a government Single-Payer system)

I don’t want my taxes to go up.

Sure, your taxes would probably go up.  You’d be paying more into Medicare, but guess what!  YOU’RE ALREADY PAYING MORE TAXES, just in a different form!  What does the middle class think their premiums are, a gift to their insurance company for doing such a good job?  Premiums have risen so drastically that the average individual now pays over $4000 each year for health insurance with a private insurer.  My question to the nay-sayers then is this: if you had the same coverage as you do now, but never had to argue with your insurance on the phone because of hidden fees, never had to search for a doctor that accepted your insurance, who cares whether the money is going to the private sector or the government!?  In fact, if everyone was paying into the same pot for healthcare, the young and old, sick and healthy, our premiums would probably go down or at least stay the same.  Spread the risk around and no one person is stuck with the bill!

These were just a few of the things that I heard being said/shouted, and through it all I sat quietly listening to what Rep. Weiner and the audience had to say.  It was exciting, it was scary, but most of all, it was eye-opening.  We are the land of freedom, where anyone has the right to express their individuality without fear of persecution or reprisal.  Somewhere along the way we lost our moral compass and veered off-course, to a place where we no longer care about the common good of our society.  We will send millions in aid to Africa every year to help the world’s poor and destitute, but I’ll be damned if I’ll help my neighbor with leukemia.

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Saturday's Health Care Rally @ Times Square

See slideshow of Healthcare Rally also in New York Times.

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Join "Rally for Health Care Reform" this Saturday!

Saturday, August 29

Downstate Contingent Joining

UNITY RALLY FOR HEALTH CARE REFORM

(Please join at any point!)

10am-12pm:

· TABLING @ GRAND ARMY PLAZA

· Gathering signatures supporting a public option (for Sen. Schumer)!

· Flyering for the 2pm rally at Times Square to demonstrate our support for PROGRESSIVE health care reform!

• RSVP here!

12pm: leave together for Times Square

2pm-4pm:

· HEALTH INSURANCE REFORM RALLY @ TIMES SQUARE

· A partnership of NYC grassroots groups and Organizing for America

· Speaking program begins at 2pm. Arrive early!

“It's our health care. It's our time. Save the date to make your voice heard.”

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2009 Downstate Healthcare Debate Deathmatch

Tomorrow's debate will feature the following 4 questions. Whether or not you made it or you skipped class: Please feel free after the Deathmatch to carry on debate by leaving any comments below!, on any topic, or on any thoughts you had while observing the historical Downstate debates.

1. Should illegal immigrants be extended health coverage?

2. Are the current structure & rates of fee-for-service (i.e. pay doctors based on predetermined cost per procedure) working for the public good? Would the alternative of pay-for-performance be better?



3. Should organs be for sale?

4. Should America change to a single-payer system (i.e. Medicare for all) instead of our current system of mixed Medicare-Medicaid-private insurance?

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