www.escambiacms.org SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 VOLUME 44, NO. 5
UPCOMING EVENTS Saturday, October 18, 2014 | 7:30a Fall CME Conference & Vendor Fair Holiday Inn Pensacola Beach 5 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™ Sponsors: Safe Harbor Tax Advisory, Underwood Anderson & Associates, Inc., Dyken Wealth Strategies, Florida Doctors Insurance Company, McMahon & Hadder Insurance SAVE THE DATE 2015 ECMS Installation of Officers Saturday, January 10, 2015 Hilton on Pensacola Beach President-Elect Christopher Burton, M.D.
Founded in 1873
BULLETIN Editors: Hillary Hultstrand, M.D. Erica Huffman, Executive Director
This year has flown by. As I write this, Christmas is only three months away. But it seems that there is still so much to accomplish in 2014. We are very enthusiastic about our upcoming ECMS Fall CME Conference & Vendor Fair. If you haven’t already, please make plans to attend on Saturday, October 18, 2014. We will cover required CME including “Prevention of Medical Errors” and “Domestic Violence.” The conference will also cover “Federal and State Laws, Prescribing Controlled Substances.” You may have noticed that we tried something new this year. We consolidated meetings and instead of having a monthly meeting, we’ve created two longer CME conferences trying to cover the needs of our local physicians. ECMS is interested in meeting the needs of all of our local physicians. To that end, we plan to send out a survey to help assess unmet needs. We are interested in understanding why our members have remained members. We are also interested in understanding why our local physicians who have not chosen to become members are not joining. ECMS would like to grow our membership. We understand that there will be physicians who are not even familiar with the purpose or goals of our medical society. The mission of the Escambia County Medical Society is to promote the art and science of medicine in order to improve the health of our community. This includes tradition and honoring the history of medical care in Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties. We also strive to serve the needs of our community through service of our members in the practice of medicine. We hope that this is not mere verbiage. There have been a lot of new burdens placed on physicians. The Electronic Health Record and “achieving meaningful use” have added stress, cost and increased work hours to almost every physician’s day. In trying to create a better environment for physicians
to practice, we need unity so there is a clear voice in going to the legislature to fight for those issues that will help ease some of these burdens placed on physicians. Dr. Susan Laenger After all, our patients reap the benefits of better care when physicians are less stressed, and not burned out. On a final note, I would like to ask each of you to vote in the upcoming November election. It is important that physicians, as thought leaders, are represented well in the final outcome of the vote. I’m particularly concerned about Amendment 2. Amendment 2 provides for the use of marijuana for certain medical conditions. While it appears that the polls suggest that the majority of Florida backs the use of medical marijuana, a recent poll suggested that only 53% of probable voters back the measure. While my heart goes out to those whose medical conditions such as cancer or seizure could potentially benefit, the FMA and AMA firmly oppose legalization of marijuana for medical use. The American Psychiatric Association released a statement outlining the public harms of marijuana. “There is no scientific evidence that marijuana is in any way beneficial for the treatment of any psychiatric disorder. In contrast, current evidence supports, at minimum, a strong association of cannabis use with the onset of psychiatric disorders. Adolescents are particularly vulnerable to harm, given the effects of cannabis on neurological development,” the statement said.