A national health publication notes that Milwaukee internist Ian Gilson attended a recent and highly-publicized White House physicians' meeting on national health care reform with President Barack Obama.
Gilson explained his active support of national health care reform, according to Health Care, an arm of the National Journal:
"'You may not understand this as a personal issue, but we see it all the time," Gilson said. "One of my patients invited me to a community forum after I spoke to him at an appointment. I told the stories about what I see at a free clinic where I work. Those stories I can bring with my own experience. The feedback I got was emotionally very powerful.'"
[Disclosure: Gilson is my primary care physician.]
It was a great and totally unexpected honor to be invited to meet with President Obama on such short notice, and it was not easy to cancel a day of scheduled patients and find a way to get to and stay in DC, but I found a way to go. I was representing Wisconsin in a delegation of 60 doctors from Doctors for America, doctors who take care of patients, from every state - the first time this has ever happened at the White House. The typical White House health summit is pharma and insurance company CEO's, policy wonks, and AMA honcho types. President Obama, the first community organizer President, wanted something different - docs in the trenches of everyday care - and he got us. We are witnesses to the human consequences of insurance loss, denial, and abuse, and we will speak out for reform every chance we get. We, and the President, know that the consequences of another failure this time are unthinkable and unacceptable. His plan is just a first step, but is a major one.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the white coat - it was my own, the one I wear every day in clinic. As far as wearing it to the White House, I thought it was appropriate - making a (White) house call for a sick health care system.
Ian Gilson, MD, FACP
Shorewood, WI