Anesthesiologist: a physician specializing in anesthesiology.

(Webster)

This is a call to arms for Anesthesiologists in Ohio.

 

The time has come to stop others from using our professional title, Anesthesiologist. Simply adding the word, “nurse,” to make, “Nurse Anesthesiologist,” makes this act of professional deceit no better.

Let that sink in, they wish to call themselves, “Anesthesiologists”.

A recent past president of the ASA convinced me of the need to call out members who sit on their hands while the rest of us fight. I trust that you will not sit by and allow the Ohio State Association of Nurse Anesthetists’ leadership to grant themselves our title by tricking lawmakers into thinking that they are doctors. All anesthesiologists must join in the defense of our profession. If not, then shame on you and yes, I mean it.

According to the AANA, your medical school and residency do not matter. They claim that your internship, the single most important and demanding period of a physician’s training, has no bearing on your ability to practice your profession. The AANA asserts that their two years of classes and clinicals are equivalent to your exhausting 12,000 hours of residency training and your four years of medical school combined. This message is being pushed fervently to lawmakers as the AANA leadership seeks to greedily take on the title of “Anesthesiologist” while expanding their scope of practice. The ASA/OSA will never belittle the time and effort that our CRNA colleagues have put into their professional training but the blatant denigration of our education is both absurd and desperate. We do not equivocate the behavior of the AANA and OSANA leadership with that of the professionals that we work with every day, who worked hard to earn their title, Nurse Anesthetist, and are proud of it. Don’t help this group drag the rest of their membership into an embarrassing spectacle in our state.

If these things don’t make you angry, they should. Our Political Action Committee monies are entirely separate from our state society dues. You have to contribute independently to the OSA PAC to fight back. Their lobby has spent $179,000.00 in our state capitol in the last 18 months while we collected only $27,000 last year in PAC contributions. That’s only 15% of their amount – 15%! How can we possibly fight back without your participation? Only 5% of OSA members contribute to the OSA PAC. Of last year’s total, $19,000 of this was given between the OSA leadership and one outstanding individual who gave $5,000.00. That means the entire rest of our state raised only $8,000 from about 45 of more than 1600 regular members. Won’t you join us by doing your part for your own profession?

If you do not care that CRNAs will make themselves into “Anesthesiologists” without medical training, if you want to sit by while they legislate themselves into unrestricted practice, ignore my plea and just let the OSANA leadership get away with it. The rest of us must engage in OSA’s efforts to stop this and the easiest way to do this is by giving to the OSA PAC – today.

The OSA leadership will fight – hard – but we can’t do it without funding and that’s up to you. Don’t let our patients be deceived and confused when they are at their most vulnerable!

The PAC donation form is included in this newsletter. Tear it out, fill it out, and send it. Please join us in the fight and don’t delay.

 

Sincerely,

William Glenn, MD

President, Ohio Society of Anesthesiologists