2009 National Convention: Celebrating Our Victories and Preparing for the Challenges Ahead
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For three days in May, CIR’s newly-elected delegates from across the country came together in Philadelphia to review the past year’s accomplishments and to strategize for the year to come.
Nearly 200 delegates traveled to City of Brotherly Love for the 2009 CIR National Convention, held from May 15 to 17, 2009.
The weekend focused on several issues important to resident physicians, including work hours, safety in the workplace, and the effort in Congress to pass meaningful health care reform this year.
Since the large majority of the participants were newly-elected, first-time delegates, they appreciated the “big picture” presentation of CIR’s issues and core values.
Keynote speaker Richard Kirsch, national campaign manager for Health Care for America Now – a coalition of progressive groups among which CIR is a member – provided an update on the status of health care reform proposals being hashed out in Congress. Kirsch went into detail about the public insurance plan option, a key component of President Obama’s health care proposal, which would establish an insurance option, similar to Medicare, that would compete directly with private insurers. Comparative effectiveness research and better reimbursement rates for primary care would also be important elements of health care reform, Kirsch said.
Smaller-session workshops on delegate responsibilities, negotiations, safety in the operating room, and communications strategies gave resident leaders the tools to build stronger chapters back home.
After a presentation by New Mexico Vice President Dr. John Ingle and NY Vice President Dr. Vaughn Whittaker on the history of work hours reform and the recent report on the subject by the Institute of Medicine, delegates broke into small groups and had thoughtful discussions on “what keeps us in the hospital so long.” They brainstormed solutions to inefficiencies and barriers to reasonable work hours in their hospitals.
CIR President Dr. L. Toni Lewis and Secretary-Treasurer Dr. Elizabeth Burpee reviewed the legislative and political action CIR members participated in this past year, including traveling to the 2008 Democratic and Republican National Conventions, and outlined goals for the coming year to inject the doctor’s voice into the national debate on health care. Always a crowd-pleaser, the colorful and at-times humorous regional reports presentation catalogued a stunning year’s worth of activity by our chapters in the areas of collective bargaining, new organizing, and political action. The dead-on delivery by New Jersey Vice President Dr. Snehal Bhatt, Florida Vice President Dr. Janetta Cureton, and Dr.Matt Harris, one of the New York Regional Vice Presidents, drew both laughter and cheers.
The National Convention is also a time to conduct the official business of the union. The House of Delegates approved the annual budget and two minor amendments to the governing Constitution and By-Laws of CIR.
Although CIR provides for the direct election of officers for the Executive Committee by the membership, there were no contested elections this year.
As such, the full slate of candidates were officially installed at the convention, including returning officers Dr. L. Toni Lewis as President, Dr. Nailah Thompson as Executive Vice President, Dr. Elizabeth Burpee as Secretary-Treasurer, Dr. Michael Mazzini as Massachusetts Regional VP, Dr. Janetta Cureton as Florida Regional VP, Dr. John Ingle as New Mexico Regional, VP, and Drs. Matt Harris, Farbod Raiszadeh, Vishal Verma and Vaughn Whittaker as New York Regional VPs, and new officers Dr. Davida Flattery as Northern California Regional VP, Dr. Michael Jolley as Southern California Regional VP, and Dr. Michael Nagar as New Jersey Regional VP.”