AOA leaders open Board meeting with a look back and a look ahead

At this morning’s opening of the AOA Board of Trustees’ annual meeting in Chicago, executive leaders took stock of the association’s key activities during the past year and underscored the challenges—and opportunities—that lie ahead.

In particular, AOA Executive Director John B. Crosby, JD, cited AOA efforts to voice members’ priorities in the health care reform debate. Every position the AOA took on the issue during the past 18 months, he said, “was based on what our House of Delegates told us it supports and what our Board of Trustees was directed to implement.”

Those priorities included support for universal coverage, increased payments for primary care physicians, increased use of community health centers, advancement of the patient-centered medical home concept, increased funding for student loans and forgiveness of loans for students who work in underserved areas.

“No,” Crosby continued, “we didn’t win every last battle we wanted to win in the health system reform debate, particularly regarding the permanent fix to the SGR [sustainable growth rate] formula and professional liability insurance reform.” Noting that much work remains on health care reform, Crosby added, “At the end of the day, we think we’re making progress. We think things are just a little bit better than they were before.”

Crosby then turned to some of osteopathic medicine’s recent gains, mentioning that five of the nation’s top 100 hospitals according to Thomson Reuters are accredited by the AOA’s Healthcare Facilities Accreditation Program. “We have a lot to be proud of,” he said.

15th big idea

Both outgoing AOA President Larry A. Wickless, DO, and AOA President-elect Karen J. Nichols, DO, discussed how osteopathic medicine’s current student body gives them confidence that the profession will continue to answer challenges and add to its record of accomplishments.

During the past year, said Dr. Wickless, “it’s been great to go around and meet the different state societies and interact with them, and particularly the schools. … It’s certainly interesting to see the questions students come up with, how they interact and how they think through issues. We certainly have a very, very bright student body. I know they’re going to be following in our footsteps.”

“Our students,” Dr. Nichols added, “are our bright and shining future, and they inspire me every single day.” In fact, she said, she had been thinking about the young people currently studying osteopathic medicine when reading recent magazine articles.

“If you get Smithsonian Magazine, its last issue was about the 40 things you need to know for the next 40 years,” said Dr. Nichols, who is the dean of the Midwestern University/Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine in Downers Grove, Ill. “And the last issue of The Atlantic was on the 14 big ideas whose time has come.

“No, osteopathic medicine was not mentioned in either of those articles. But we really are becoming known on the national stage in the health care arena. And I think we are poised, based on what I’m seeing out there, to be in the national arena in the public’s eye. The next time they write that Atlantic article, there will be 15 big ideas.”