ABC News: Are Honors for Physicians the New Political Diploma Mill?

Saw this on ABC last night and I want to applaud Dr. Rudolph Mueller for taking this to the news. Thank YOU, ABC, for starting to cover some of this stuff at last.

Mueller got a fax from a Washington congressman in Washington saying that he had been named “2004 Physician of the Year.” It turned out though, that there were a lot of people who got that award, and you needed to donate $1250 to the GOP to collect it.

“To actually buy your award and it’s not from your peers or from your patients or from the community that you serve, it’s really deceptive,”said Mueller.”

“It’s like the old diploma mills,” said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a government watchdog group. “It’s the kind of scam that we’ve seen congressional investigations look at when they take place in the private sector. But here, since members of Congress are doing it, we’re not going to see any investigation.”

Mueller went to the sessions around the award – lots of promotion of GOP ideas about marketing, lawyers and taxes. He was met with silence when he tried to raise the issue of the lack of affordable health insurance.

Bush even spoke at the NRCC dinner to thank the attendees for their “investment” in the party:

“You’re making a wise investment about the future of this country, an investment made upon principle, an investment made upon freedom, an investment that will help us stay a prosperous nation, and an investment that will allow each and every American to rise to his or her own God-given talents,” he said.

Doctors were urged to use the certificate for marketing purposes – even though it wasn’t granted by any peer-approval process or based on anything but a hefty donation to the party.

Sick.

How about this? Look for these physicians – a quick search will show who is using it for internet marketing. Look for “Physician of the Year” plus GOP or National Republican Congressional Committee or NRCC. I’m going to send a few “shame on you” emails myself.

I have sent an email to Dr. Mueller to thank him, and another to the American Medical Association protesting this. The AMA should consider this as an ethics violation. No physician should accept an award that is not based on merit or peer-review, but only on a political donation.

Send your own email to the AMA.

A physician who truly deserved a Physician of the Year Award would never donate money to a political party to get it.

Earlier coverage
http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2001/07/30/gvl20730.htm
http://www.hillnews.com/news/091003/money.aspx
http://indyweek.com/durham/2002-12-25/porch.html