The President’s Stew
Over the past month or so I have had the opportunity to travel to several component society meetings and I look forward to many more opportunities in the coming months. With the Thanksgiving season all abound and the Christmas season just around the corner, it seems to be an appropriate time to continue to develop the president’s tasty and robust stew with a little hope and promise. The holly and mistletoe are hanging, and new year’s resolutions are upcoming. 'Tis the season of hope and thanksgiving. As you all will remember, we began our stew last month with the base ingredient of membership. The base ingredient is always the foundational component to any good stew or for that matter, life in general. We all need a strong foundation or base to weather the storms of life and to hold us or our stew together. As I traveled around the state to component society meetings, we have continued to discuss the need to improve this base ingredient, membership. By no means am I implying that we do not have a strong base, but we also know that we can and should strive for growth and improvement in our membership’s activity. It is time to add some more flavor and maybe a little spice as we continue to brew this president’s stew.
The pot is large, so we have a lot of room to add ingredients. During my travels, I have listened to suggestions, and we have discussed ideas about membership and engagement. There have been many other flavors (ideas) tossed out to be considered and addressed. We have had discussions about administrative burdens like the challenges of prior authorization, credentialing, Medicare advantage plans, and insurance issues. Other discussions focused on scope, access to healthcare, payments, hospitals in crisis, and public health issues. The state election is now in our rear-view mirror and as I said, the season is full of hope and promise. At least I hope and pray that it is!
As the old saying goes, “the only constant in life is change.” We have many seasoned legislators and statewide elected officials returning along with some new faces. Of course, with all that there will be leadership changes at the capitol, but being an optimist, we will continue to seek for positives and hope within these changes. We recently had another great group of current and future legislative leaders participating in an advocacy segment for the MSMA Physician Leadership Academy. I had the great fortune and pleasure to moderate this panel discussion of three state representatives and three state senators. The timing could not have been more perfect. It occurred three days after the election and all six had been re-elected, so the conversations were open, relaxed, and I felt there was hope and encouragement in their tone and messages. The members of the MSMA Physician Leadership Academy were soaking it in and fully engaged. Maybe it was just my rose-colored glasses, but I felt that the elected officials were truly engaged and garnering a good deal from the interactions from both their fellow legislators as well as the physician leaders. Suffice it to say, I felt like we were adding a lot of spice and flavor to my stew that day and the taste was improving greatly with each and every conversation. I am grateful to these individuals for their leadership and service to our state. I would also like to extend a special thanks for their participation and candid answers during the leadership panel discussion.
With any good stew and life in general, it takes many savory ingredients and spices to achieve the precise flavor we desire. The panel discussed many items worthy to be ingredients in the president’s stew, but the one I would like to focus on, as the next major ingredient, is advocacy.
There were many topics discussed during the day with the legislative panel but the one message that came across loud and clear to the leadership academy participants, change must start with advocacy. We all know that numbers are powerful and the bigger the better but, as important as numbers are, advocacy has to begin at the individual level. We know our major organizations and associations are critically important, but it is important for each of us to have a voice as well as a personal relationship with our legislators. They may receive thousands of email blasts and recorded messages but the ones that are the most important and resonate are those personal relationship calls and discussions.
Another topic that I hope lands on fertile ground for the future is that there are NO physicians in any legislative position. We discussed that there are nurses, optometrists, veterinarians, pharmacists, and other healthcare providers but NO physicians in any legislative office, in many years. The legislators collectively saw that as a major deficiency. So, one of you out there, take the charge and strongly consider a future in a legislative position. Now wouldn’t that add some spice and flavor to a future president’s stew?
I by no means want to distract from the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons of hope and promise but I do want us to be mindful of that other season that is upon us and can bear heavily on our future, the Legislative Season. I want us to keep at the forefront of our minds, hope and promise, and to work hard to make them a reality during both the Christmas and Legislative seasons.
Our state and nation are facing some very troublesome times. Pray daily for our leaders that they stay focused on what is best for our state and country. Healthcare in our state is facing major challenges – now is the time to come together as a unified whole to advocate for the patients of Mississippi. Reflecting back on my inaugural speech - remember we are stronger together. Organized medicine must be strong and unified to address these challenges for the betterment of our profession and our patients. Let us not forget the three C’s of success as I have called them - collaboration, coordination, and communication. If the president’s stew can just blend these ingredients together, oh what a flavorful stew we will have.
I look forward to continuing my travels across the state, meeting with you and your component societies, hearing your suggestions, and acting upon as many as we possibly can. If you are not a member of MSMA, I encourage you to become one. If you are a member, please recruit your non-member friends to join us.
I hope you and your families had a wonderful and enjoyable Thanksgiving and I pray we all have a glorious and wonderful Christmas. Success is a state of mind and we can all find it, if we just look hard enough. Now what will next month’s stew ingredient be? Send me your thoughts and help me find that ingredient. Remember we need a physician in the legislature, why not you?
Best wishes, joy, and peace.
John Mitchell