What Dr. Liver was up to.

I found a news story in the Big City Paper about what Dr. Liver must have been up to yesterday.

Pennsylvania physicians rally for malpractice relief

Posted on Tue, Apr. 29, 2003

By Karl Stark, Marian Uhlman and Linda Loyd

Inquirer Staff Writers

Nearly 2,000 doctors, nurses and their supporters took off work yesterday and packed a rally at the Valley Forge Convention Center to demand that the government do more to bring about malpractice relief.

Speaker after speaker warned that young doctors were leaving Pennsylvania and that patients would lose access to health care if mushrooming malpractice premiums were not curbed.

Many of the white-coated protesters left behind shuttered offices and patients whose office visits had to be rescheduled. A few emergency rooms reported greater than normal volumes, but most appeared unaffected.

The protesters’ targets were political. A few held placards that put the faces of Democratic Gov. Rendell and U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.) on playing cards in the manner of former Iraqi leaders. Both men, doctors said, have failed to fully support limits on pain and suffering in malpractice lawsuits.

“It’s doctors expressing their opinions,” said James Tayoun, a vascular surgeon in South Philadelphia who led yesterday’s protest and helped organize similar rallies near Harrisburg and Pittsburgh. “The physicians of Pennsylvania are united. The patients are behind us.”

Some patients yesterday quietly disputed that.

Kristina Gayle, 16, of Overbrook, said she traveled from school to the Bryn Mawr Hospital emergency department to be checked for a stomach ailment that ordinarily would have been seen by her family doctor.

Despite a general briefing from her mother about the reasons for yesterday’s strike, Gayle said she was not sympathetic.

“I feel as though doctors made a commitment to help people,” she said. “They shouldn’t go on strike. Money shouldn’t be the issue. Patients should be first.”

At least eight of 65 acute-care hospitals reported busier emergency rooms, said Andrew Wigglesworth, president of the Delaware Valley Healthcare Council. Doctors have also informed 27 hospitals in Southeastern Pennsylvania that they would not be performing elective surgery.

Doctors are expected to continue canceling appointments and elective treatments through the week. “We’re working hard to make sure care is not interrupted,” Wigglesworth said.

Some observers said it was too early to say how patients would fare as the week progressed.

“I expect it will take a few days before people really feel they have to see someone – I would not expect it necessarily on the first day,” said David Kennedy, vice dean for professional affairs at Penn’s School of Medicine.

About 250 doctors each protested yesterday in Pittsburgh and Camp Hill.

The rally here was a high-spirited, two-hour affair that started in the Convention Center and spilled out for a finale in the parking lot.

Rock anthems and the theme from the movie Rocky blared in the background as the physicians, many in white coats, and others gathered in the convention hall. One protester carried a sign, “Doctors Take Oaths, Lawyers Take Money.”

Lawyers were the targets of numerous barbs. One white-coated man hoisted a sign equating lawyers with terrorists.

U.S. Rep. James Greenwood (R., Pa.), the author of a federal bill making $250,000 limits on pain and suffering the law of the land, was one prominent speaker. He drew an ovation when he said his opponents in Congress “take the trial lawyers’ money and sing the trial lawyers’ song.”

State Rep. John M. Perzel, the Philadelphia Republican who recently became speaker of the House, described himself as an enthusiastic supporter of the doctors’ cause. “We’re committed to caps. We’re going to get to caps,” he told the crowd. “We are on your side. We’re going to be doing all the things you ask.”

Rendell came in for a good deal of criticism. The governor so far has let doctors defer part of their malpractice premiums this year. But many speakers yesterday criticized him for setting up a malpractice task force – they called it a “task farce” – but not letting members vote on specific recommendations.

The governor’s spokeswoman, Kate Philips, said Rendell had already made “real progress” and would be making more proposals shortly.

Philips said the rallies were hurting the wrong people. “This protest is misdirected,” she said, “because it’s affecting the patients.”

Of the placards that compare Rendell to an Iraqi leader, Philips said: “To compare him to a dictator targeted by U.S. armed forces is in very poor taste.”

Specter was unavailable for comment.

The protest yesterday was organized by the Politically Active Physicians Association (PAPA), which will be joining various medical societies in a major protest rally on the steps of the Harrisburg Capitol Building on May 6.

Among hospitals that seemed most affected by the protest yesterday were Mercy Hospital of Philadelphia in West Philadelphia and Mercy Suburban Hospital in Norristown, which reported a 30 percent increase yesterday in emergency visits.

sigh At least they had a good day for it.