DR. VERNER S. WAITE - Letter to Judge Gadbois/Q & A with AMA President John Clowes
The now president of the AMA, John Clowes, can be heard on a commercial tape, acknowledging more than 80% of medical peer review is done for economic reasons.
Still the AMA and organized medicine at the state levels have indicated no desire to change the system or remove the immunity. It is up to the outraged victims of this system to change it by vigorous action of our own. No one is going to do it for you. The lawmakers can change it by mandating outside doctors to sit in judgment, not the local doctors. In exchange for an unbiased jury we will give up our right to sue. The right to sue is an illusion for most of us for we do not have $500,000.00 to go to Federal Court. In Federal Court there is no immunity. If you get before a jury with the type of activity that occurs in medical peer review you may well win. This will be after five years of great anguish and a ruined reputation.
The idea of a data bank on peer review abuses appeals to me. However the data accumulated must be factual and not lead to the ruination of honest peer reviewers. Some honest peers do exist.
I believe the problem can be solved. Those who have suffered a medical peer review have little to lose. It will not go away if we do not become angry activists. Pressure from this organization, the Union of American Physicians and Dentist, The Association of Physicians and Surgeons, and The American College of Legal Medicine can probably be obtained. They are of the opinion the process is a deadly wrong. Elective representatives in this country are all too often the pawns of groups who give them the most money to get reelected. They should be actively lobbied even so.
I wish the Semmelweis Society to go out of business. Until it is not needed we are doing what we can to combat this problem. I have testified on the problem and will do so. I think this process can not stand vigorous exposure. Logically we should be able to get the Bill of Rights, the 6th Amendment for doctors.
Thank you.
Verner S. Waite MD FACS
Executive Secretary, Semmelweis Society
SAN FRANCISCO - October 5, 1990
w/ John Lee Clowe M.D.
Chief of the House of Delegates
American Medical Association
Available on commercial tape
AMA President in 1993
DR. VERNER S. WAITE: I am Dr. Waite. my question is to Dr. Clowe. If the AMA has been found to have released a monster with its immunity provision, that you have insisted upon, is the AMA willing to rein the monster in.
JOHN L. CLOWE: That's a very good question. Yes, we are.
DR. WAITE: What kind of evidence does it take for you to realize that there is a monster. We have heard speaker after speaker, here today, refer to this. I'll be saying the same thing. What kind of evidence does the AMA need to rein this monster in?
R. CLOWE: I don't know how to answer that. Give me an example.
R. WAITE: 10,000 physicians in the United States destroyed maliciously by their competitors. 10,000 Patrick cases, purely malicious. Economic. only 100 cases found to be true honest peer review. Now what do you do?
R. CLOWE: You have put me on the spot.
R. WAITE: It doesn't seem like much of a spot. Could you consider reining the monster in under those circumstances?
R. CLOWE: I tell you what I will do. That is a very interesting point that hasn't been pushed very far.
R. WAITE: I have pushed it for four years to the AMA.
R. CLOWE: And it has not gotten anywhere at the AMA, as you know.
R. WAITE: Of course not. They keep insisting on immunity.
R. CLOWE: Yeah. But I will bring it back into our meeting and see if I can get an answer for you. And, I will get back to you.
R. WAITE: Like the lawyers' hypothetical question, those figures are not hypothetical.
CLOWE: I know they are not. You are absolutely right. And I will see what we can do about why 'the AMA has dragged their foot on this. I have no idea.