Charting the Year Ahead
Western Regional Round-Up
The Southern California Delegation caucuses at the CIR Western Regional Meeting. |
On November 3rd, 2007, the three chapters that make up CIR’s Western Region -- New Mexico, Southern, and Northern California -- came together to meet, share news, and make plans for how to accomplish their goals in the year ahead.
Reporting Back
The meeting began with each CIR hospital chapter sharing the events and challenges of the last year. Delegates from the University of New Mexico (UNM) spoke about their successful campaigns to join CIR and negotiate their first contract. “Our organizing campaign and victory at the negotiating table got our voices heard where they should be heard,” said Dr. Medhi Yazdanpanah, a PGY 4 in Psychiatry at UNM.
Other chapters spoke about challenges relating to the precarious financial situation of their hospitals. In Santa Rosa, CA, Family Medicine residents had to fight to keep their program and clinics alive after Sutter Health, the private HMO that was running the hospital, announced that the hospital was closing.
Uniting with fellow hospital employees, “we were able to form a coalition with the broader concerned community, including labor, state politicians, neighborhood and religious groups,” said CIR Delegate Erin Lundee, MD of the Santa Rosa Family Medicine Residency Program. Due to this community-wide effort, the program formed a new affiliation, and continues providing healthcare to the community.
At Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, the recent closing of a neighboring hospital created the greatest present challenge. With the neighboring institution’s shuttering, the community turned to Harbor-UCLA, increasing its Emergency Room patient volume 40%, and its wait-times by 70%. CIR is working closely with the L.A. County Department of Health Services to deal with this crisis.
Turning An Eye Toward Politics
Later in the day the discussion turned to important state and national political issues. CIR members talked about their work supporting the State Children’s Health Insurance Program and the California Statewide Campaign for Universal Healthcare.
“You can ignore it and pretend you can practice medicine without it, but you can’t be involved in patient care without being involved in politics,” said Dr. Jennifer Blair, a PGY 2 in Family Practice at San Francisco General Hospital. “If you refuse to talk about politics and the way it shapes the delivery of healthcare, you are just letting other people make the decisions for you.”
Drs. Elizabeth Burpee and Nailah Thompson, CIR Regional Vice Presidents, reported on their experience at the SEIU Member Political Action Conference in Washington, DC in October. They emphasized that SEIU is determined to make universal health coverage a key political priority in the 2008 election season, and in a testament to SEIU’s importance, the Conference was visited by five Democratic presidential candidates.
“Smart, Strong Organization Works”
Tying the chapter reports and the political discussions together, keynote speaker Phil Caper, MD elucidated the secret to both making concrete improvements in our residency programs and having an impact in the political area: “Smart, strong organization works.”
Dr. Caper knows this first-hand -- during the 1960s he was the president of an independent housestaff union in Boston which later affiliated with CIR. In 1967, the union organized a “Heal-In” at Boston Medical Center, during which residents refused to discharge patients. “As a result of the ‘Heal-In’, the $2,500 yearly salary of a housestaff officer was increased to $10,000, which had a national impact on resident physicians’ salaries,” he said.
Dr. Caper also addressed how strong organization can help doctors effectively stand up for their patients in the political arena against HMOs and pharmaceutical companies which don’t always have the patients’ best interests in mind. “Doctors have credibility and have a union,” he said. “With power and authority, you can make a difference.”
Having charted a course for the next year, CIR’s western regional leaders went forth ready to work together to create continued improvements for residents and patients.