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Ann Thorac Surg 2002;73:11-14
© 2002 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons

Presidential address

A passion to heal

William F. Sasser, MD*a

a Department of Surgery, St. John’s Mercy Medical Center, St. Louis, Missouri, USA

* Address reprint requests to Dr Sasser, 621 South New Ballas Rd, St. Louis, MO 63141, USA

Presented at the Forty-eighth Annual Meeting of the Southern Thoracic Surgical Association, San Antonio, TX, Nov 8–10, 2001.


   Introduction
 
Friends and colleagues, I am proud and honored to have served as president of the Southern Thoracic Surgical Association this past year. This is not the first time in my 33-year career that I have had the responsibility and privilege as president to address a group of fine surgeons. Each time, I wonder what I have to share that will interest my esteemed colleagues. I do not conduct groundbreaking research or head a department at a major academic medical center. Rather, on a daily basis, I am hard at work as a solo practitioner treating people.

As I embarked on this process, I read many news stories about the state of medicine. A New York Times article titled "Doctors sue health plans over coverage" said 7,000 physicians in Connecticut were suing six HMOs for denying coverage and withholding payments to doctors [1].

The chairman of the AMA’s board of trustees says in this article, "Physicians throughout the country have been pushed to the breaking point."

Another article titled "Feds fear physicians are making a living" was written by fellow thoracic surgeon Noel Raskin, MD [2]. It is a cynical account of the government’s efforts to seek and prosecute physicians committing Medicare fraud. I also read an article titled "Many doctors calling it quits earlier than planned" [3]. It reported on a survey conducted by a Dallas-based health-care recruiting firm [4]. The survey found that nearly half of physicians 50 or older plan to leave medicine within 3 years. Another 28% plan either to refuse to accept new patients or to otherwise limit the amount of time they devote to medicine. Managed care is the single greatest source of professional frustration for these doctors. In fact, for 9 out of 10, managed care is at least one . . . [Full Text of this Article]






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