News

Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the BMC Decision

If you ask residents if they are students or employees, most will point to their long hours, job responsibilities, and paycheck and choose “employee” without a second thought. Yet for decades, this question has been the basis for legal challenges from hospitals to the right of interns and residents to join a union. December 2009 marks the tenth anniversary of a landmark decision granting employee rights to housestaff training in the nation’s private teaching hospitals.

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CIR Contracts Stay Strong in Tough Times

The economic downturn dominates the headlines and is a source of concern across the country. But for safety-net hospitals, including most hospitals staffed by CIR resident physicians, the bad economy brings twice the trouble. More people are losing their health insurance when they lose their jobs and relying on public programs like Medicaid or joining the ranks of the uninsured. This means more people depending on our hospitals. At the same time, tax revenue is down at the state, county, and city level, causing governments to cut their budgets for health care precisely at the time when more people are using these services.

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It’s Time to Deliver on Health Care Reform

On October 20, 2009, the phone lines in every Congressional office lit up, as CIR and many other organizations contributed to an estimated 317,000 calls to tell Congress it was “time to deliver” on health care reform. On that same day, resident physicians amplified the message by appearing at Town Hall meetings, rallies, and media events across the country.

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CIR Joins Other Physicians, Health Care Providers and Advocates to Endorse HR 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act

The Executive Committee of the Committee of Interns and Residents/SEIU Healthcare formally endorsed HR 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, an historic and comprehensive health care reform bill which successfully passed the House of Representatives on November 7, 2009.

CIR has evaluated this year’s reform legislative proposals by focusing our attention on four key areas in order to determine whether the bill represented the best interests of our members and the patients we serve.

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CIR on Work Hours in the New York Times

CIR paid  respects last week to Sidney Zion, a journalist and author who led the national charge for reforms in the training, workload and supervision of resident doctors after his daughter’s death  in a New York City hospital in 1984. Zion died at age 75 on August 2.  The New York Times published the following letter August 7 by CIR President L. Toni Lewis.

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CIR Pushes for Patient and Resident Safety as Challenges Mount to Institute of Medicine Report on Resident Work Hours

Universally viewed as ”the gold standard” of academic research,an Institute of Medicine report is usually accorded great respect and legitimacy — but not this one!  The IOM’s “Resident Duty Hours: Enhancing Sleep, Supervision and Safety” was produced over 12 months by a panel of experts and vetted in the most rigorous of peer review processes.

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CIR Gives Senator Bingaman a Health Care Check-Up

As New Mexico Senator Jeff Bingaman joined his colleagues on the Senate HELP Committee in a July 15 vote to send a comprehensive health care bill to the Senate Floor, CIR doctors came together with nurses and health care providers outside the senator's Albuquerque office to show support for health care reform that includes a robust public health insurance option.

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CIR and Allies Rally in Philadelphia for a "More Perfect Health Care System"

In conjunction  with the annual national convention in Philadelphia, CIR leaders from around the country held a press conference on May 15, 2009 steps away from Independence Hall to call for “a more perfect health care system.”

Brandishing historical “Betsy Ross” and “Don’t Tread on Me” flags, resident physicians and other doctors, medical students and health care workers shared their experiences with a failing health care system and called for comprehensive reform.

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2009 National Convention: Celebrating Our Victories and Preparing for the Challenges Ahead

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.

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CIR Newsletter

CIR News: A quarterly publication where you can find out what residents in CIR hospitals across the country are doing. 

  CIR News December 2009

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