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Ann Thorac Surg 2001;72:1442
© 2001 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons

Correspondence

We devalue ourselves and our patients if we go quietly

James P. Weaver, MD, FACSa

a Durham, NC 27704, USA

e-mail: jpweaver1{at}mindspring.com

To the Editor

As a 58-year-old practicing thoracic surgeon I fully appreciated the article by Haugen and Miller [1]. I must admit it was quite depressing to see such an erudite discussion of a subject that I have so personally experienced over the last 10 years. This entire matter could be solved if our organizations and our leaders would demand the same rights for our specialty as other citizens seem to enjoy in this country: freedom to charge a market price for our services.

Our organizations go to Washington and seem to be happy that they are able to convince the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) to only reduce us another 5% or 10% for each coming year. For some reason, our leaders have found it difficult to ask for the obvious: the same freedoms that other citizens enjoy, and for allowing our government to treat us with disdain.

"Devaluation" can involve much more than monetary issues. I personally believe that the value of what we can do for society, and how much it has taken each of us to get there, has also been "devalued." I would hope that Drs Haugen and Miller’s article will convince some of the leaders in cardiothoracic surgery to pursue the rights of cardiothoracic surgeons aggressively. If they do not, I have serious concerns about the future of our specialty.

References

  1. Haugen J.A., Miller G.E., Jr Results of continual devaluation of cardiothoracic surgical codes by the HCFA between 1984 and 1999. Ann Thorac Surg 2001;71:9-13.

Related Article

We devalue ourselves and our patients if we go quietly: Reply
George E. Miller, Jr
Ann. Thorac. Surg. 2001 72: 1442-1443. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]




This Article
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James P. Weaver
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