ORGANIZED MEDICINE

Advocacy Newsletter, AZ Chapter American College of Surgeons, August 2024

By Sarah Lee-Davisson, MD

Get Started Right Away

Advocacy can seem daunting, but there are productive, tangible, and even easy steps we can take to make a difference.  Each advocacy newsletter I send will have specific “grassroots” actionable ways that you can get involved. 

Medical Organizations and Advocacy

Supporting organized medicine is a straight-forward and very effective way that each of us can magnify the impact we can have in political decisions.  We may feel like one small voice that gets lost or overlooked beyond our vote, but joining our national and state organizations that have active advocacy programs can powerfully amplify our voices as we work toward the betterment of medicine. 

Q: How do I decide what organizations to join?

A:  Some we find out about while we are med students or residents, and we stay loyal and active with those organizations.  We also hear about groups that our colleagues are in.  This newsletter includes some of my favorite advocacy related medical organizations (see below).  Doing research about what exact efforts each group concentrates upon can also be a way to make sure that your key values or top concerns are also organizational values.

Q: What is advocacy?  What is a Political Action Committee (PAC)?

A:  Most of our organized medicine groups do a lot of education about healthcare issues to legislators.  Someone once told me that legislators have knowledge that is miles wide but an inch deep, so providing education to them about our areas of expertise is critical for them to make good votes on legislation.  Personally, we vote, we email our opinions, we visit legislators to talk to them or their staff in person about important issues.  These are all examples of advocacy.

      A medical PAC is a funding group that helps officials who have a track record or stated interest of supporting healthcare in their campaign.  Running a campaign is ridiculously expensive.  Funding those candidates that have healthcare knowledge, and/or support doctors, is important.  Of note, while our membership dues are often tax write offs and/or CME fund options, PAC contributions are NOT tax write offs.

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“If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time.  But if you come because your liberation is bound to mine, then let us work together” -Lilla Watson

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My top advocacy medical Organizations and why

• American College of Surgeons (ACS)

  • The ACS has an annual conference in DC called Leadership and Advocacy Summit.  We learn so much about advocacy and the key issues affecting the House of Surgery, we are prepared for legislative visits, then on the last day we go to our Senators and Representatives to advocate for those issues. 

  • Throughout the year, ACS also represents Surgeons and our patients.  Recently, Dr Turner talked to the Senate about Medicare payment cuts. 

  • ACS (surgeonsVoice) sends out email blasts when there is an important bill on the floor to us members, providing a link and a template email to send directly to the legislators. 

  • Grants and support for state level lobby days, and other important initiatives by chapters.

  • ACS has a PAC

• Arizona Chapter, ACS

  • We are building our advocacy muscles in this group!  This year, the plan will be to educate our membership about grassroots, simple ways to get involved.  Hopefully, people will feel a spark and get even more engaged and involved.

  • If we havn’t gotten to a topic you are interested in yet and you want to explore something, please reach out to me anytime!  We can organize legislator visits, letters to editor, etc etc.  sarahjleemd@gmail.com and (520) 237-4712

• Arizona Medical Association (ArMA)

  • This organization is incredible for state level advocacy. 

  • The Doctor of the Day program introduces a doctor each day to legislators, and meanwhile the doctor learns a bit about the legislative process and how easy it is to talk to legislators (and how much they appreciate our input!). 

  • ArMA sends regular emails with bills under consideration that are important to healthcare, and links to contact your legislators (also bill numbers so you can use the request to speak option). 

  • Very active committees and members in policy analysis and input.

  • Active support for social determinants of health (SDOH) and protecting patients.

• American Medical Association (AMA)

  • Offers a very complete advocacy course called “AMA Citizen Advocacy Academy”, and out of all the self education I have done on advocacy, this course was the best.  The AMA actually has so many resources for advocacy involvement, education, and support

  • Has a course for how to run a campaign and actually become a physician legislator!

  • Emails about important advocacy issues and bills, with links to email your legislators. 

Some of our Trauma and Burn Colleagues also highly recommend the Arizona Trauma Association and American Burn Asosociation for their work in education and advocacy, great organizations.