REMARKS OF THE PRESIDENT Dr. Trawick introduced William Freeman, MD to give him an opportunity to address the House.
Thanks to you, White coat Wednesday and the legislative reception the night before were the largest attended in many years. We had over 100 doctors in attendance which is a huge increase from the 20 doctors we had present several years ago. In February, LSMS put on its first “Boot Camp” - Candidate School for physicians. We brought in some of the most successful, brightest minds and instructors to teach physicians how to become a candidate, run, finance, and ethically manage a campaign. It was very well attended, and we plan to continue this educational conference in the future. We expect great things as a result of this conference and can’t wait to celebrate when a physician once again walks the hallowed halls of our state legislature.
“I want to start out by saying thank you! Thank you all for the support you have provided me over the past year. It has been an absolute pleasure and honor to serve as your President. I want to personally thank the Board of Governors, the other officers and especially the LSMS Staff for their support and guidance over the past year. Jeff, Maria, Lauren, Terri, Sarah and all the LSMS staff, you have been absolutely amazing in all you have accomplished and in your support for us as a board and for the membership of the LSMS. I want to thank my wife, Marci Freeman, for her continued love and support during my tenure as your president. Thank you for being there, supporting me, and helping me be the best president and husband I can be. Most of all I want to say thank you to all the physicians present here today and our members across the state. Last year, I put out a call to action declaring that the house of medicine was under attack. I challenged each of you to get out of you comfort zones, step up, and fight for the practice of medicine. And step up you did! Legislatively our team of lobbyists have worked diligently this session on 6 scope bills, 38 antivaccine bills, 4 noncompete bills, 2 medical malpractice bills, and 1 antitrust bill along with supporting several other bills that we put forth. This list does not include the many other bills they followed and tracked during this session. They were also diligently involved in passing a package of bills aimed at relieving the administrative burden on our practices. It was a very busy and hectic session this year. They worked to streamline the text and email messaging to our members to get us involved at the right time and with the right message to our legislators. This was extremely helpful in both passing and defeating several pieces of legislation this year. Thank you for responding when the texts and emails went out. Under LSMS leadership we continue to maintain our coalition of 21 specialty societies and their legislative efforts this past year. If you have not read the latest edition of The Journal, I would strongly encourage you to read it and learn first-hand of the success stories of our Council on Legislation, the LSMS, our team of lobbyist, and most importantly the difference your individual contacts and contributions made in the process. Through LAMPAC we have been able to raise money to support those legislators who most supported our causes. With your help and financial contributions this past year, we put on 2 extremely successful fundraisers for our candidates and definitely caught the attention of the legislature. Through your efforts we raised right at $100,000 for their campaigns. Thank you for your donations to LAMPAC and the candidates that support our efforts.
I leave you with one thought told to me by Maria, “In order to get politics out of medicine, doctors have to get involved in politics.”
While our recruiting efforts could have been better, we did increase our membership by a small percentage this past year. I challenge you to continue to recruit your colleagues and tell them the reasons why their participation is important to the practice of medicine. We need to continue to strengthen our recruiting efforts in the specialty organizations and encourage those physicians to join the LSMS as well. This way we can put forth a united front in the challenges we face. It has been a very fast paced year on all fronts for your Board of Governors. Through the direction of the HOD, we added an employed physician and an independent practice physician to help us address the unique needs and problems that these providers face on a daily basis. We also addressed the issues sent to the board from the HOD last session. Your board has been working on a peer-to-peer wellness program for its members. We continue to finalize the plans for a health insurance plan for the members through the Advantage Physicians Health Trust and should be available very soon. We formed two task forces to address scope of practice issues and the corporate practice of medicine in Louisiana. We as your board have traveled to Lafayette and to Lake Charles for our board meetings and will be going to Monroe in September. We look forward to a reception the Tuesday night before our meeting and would welcome any member from the area to attend. Jeff and I and other members of the LSMS staff have attended several parish society meetings to provide them with updates on the LSMS and on our legislative efforts. Fortunately, the majority of our meetings have been in person and not on Zoom! It has been great being able to travel and meet face to face once again. As you can see your BOG and LSMS Staff have been very busy on your behalf. In conclusion, I would challenge each of you continue the fight for the house of medicine. Get involved. Join LAMPAC. Run for office. Be an active member. Run for the Board of Governors. Run for leadership
18 J LA MED SOC | VOL 174 | FALL 2022
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