 |
| (Click image to enlarge) |
I just received the notice above in my inbox at work. It seems there's going to be an "ABIM Exploration Day" here in Chicago 26 August 2016. I requested an invitation but have a feeling I won't be sent one since I disclosed I was one of the ABIM's foremost critics of the ABIM MOC program. (That's right, you have to request an invitation at the link provided in this email blast)
Let's make this like open microphone night and feel free to leave your questions for the ABIM in the comments section on this blog. That way, no matter who goes to this hosted event, they'll have plenty of "exploration" questions to ask Yul Enjes, MD and Richard Baron, MD or their representatives. (Physicians are encouraged to identify themselves (and their ABIM diplomat number) so the ABIM knows you're real).
-Wes
What a joke! Those jerks need to all resign, effective immediately!
ReplyDeleteBlog Admin-
ReplyDeleteRemember, they're still "listening..."
We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. - Elie Wiesel.
ReplyDeleteStraight from the Editor's page of JACC.
Dr. Fuster, what is your view of MOC and why won't the ACC Board of Trustees support clinical cardiologists by rebuking ABIM MOC?
@DrWes: Listening? Yeah, right! 'the most expensive mistake in the history of medical education' - The Pennsylvania State Medical Society
ReplyDeleteABIM: a House of Wooden Nickels and Meaningless Pacts and Certifications. The ABIM executives represent the loss of American values and deviation from traditional democratic party philosophy. Hypocrisy is their credo and basis of their propagandistic philosophy. They lied about lifetime voluntary certification by taking it all back.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe anyone trusts the ABIM sufficiently enough to have a real conversation anymore. Foremost in my observation, the ABIM is comprised entirely of social democrats that have only socialism and none of the democratic tradition. The philosophy political has been sold out for money and socialist corporatism that has pecuniary gain as the goal not the universal ideal of equity. They are hypocrites talking about allocations and rationing in private to have a greater national budget for education and infrastructure. Yet what they actually support is the austerity war on our public and the world brings. The ABIM is a political committee helping support numerous foreign wars. They are not educated except in air. And they care nothing for infrastructure because the infrastructure for certification is virtually non-existent. Most of the allocation of resources at the ABIM gives the whole phony baloney socialist democrat movement away. They give all the money to the executives and bribe the higher echelons within the ABMS with personal inurement, condos and chauffeurs.
Dr. Baron reminds me of UK's Tony Blair. Baron is too ashamed to admit the depth of how wrong were his actions from 2007 to present. And how we were misled by him and the other key political players at the ABIM for the past 30 years. Baron's involvement as a political figure for at least a decade (officially and not) actively campaigning and lobbying for partisan healthcare reform makes his participation in any meaningful future restructuring of the ABIM suspect. Moreover, the lead Dr. Baron took in his investigative affronts and legal attacks on competing board review courses and candidate/student attendees seeking the obligatory certification is reprehensible in my view. The only way for Dr. Baron to redeem himself is to become an honest reformist working to undo what the past decades has ruined in medicine. Big government with a few powerful corporate bodies is Baron's professed model for the ABIM and medicine. His history is where we will be going under his leadership. Baron's "medical models" served as alternative styles of medicical practice in the past, but now has become legislatively enforced where all physicians now must bend to corporate organized medicine. They have a hit list, but most of the targets have already been "absorbed" or put out of business.
The backbone of the American economy - small business, private practices, medical groups, private hospitals - will meet the final hacking soon, perhaps with MACRA and CHIPS. The few last independent medical fortresses, or at this point only a few seats in the game of corporate musical chairs will in a couple of years also meet their corporate fate. The hacking up has been carried out clandestinely by these corporate political elites represented by Dr. Baron and Chris Cassel. They waged a war with opaque policies that were passed into law. MACRA may be just another word for medical machete.
ReplyDeleteWhat is not fully appreciated is the reality that Medicine will not stand without a backbone. Whoever can must stand up and fight the onslaught of "nice guy" "nice gal" professional medical carpetbaggers who prominent purpose as a non-governmental organization is they have come to ravage in the name of the new socialist party of America. I am recognizing the stark reality that the democratic party of the past no longer exists. Baron and the others have been using the ABIM and physicians fees to remake American in his political image. Baron's sense of history is strong, but it appears to me he has sold out his real participation in the democratic party's birthright for a two-bit lie.
The socialism they preach and entertain at the ABIM (and the many other revolving doors in their decades old system) is as fraudulent as the MOC scheme which pays for a lot of their healthcare movement.
I'm just agreeing with Nathan agreeing with me on Wes' last blog post...AND it's even worse. Check this out:
ReplyDeletehttp://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/3_NatlSecLJ_278-461_Bradford1.pdf
This was written by a West Point professor who got FIRED for writing this. I get queezy and only skimmed. But it's not just #highered it is our Military Academies. There is the same radicalized anti-American sentiment.
So go open up a can of whoop-A on the ABIM but seriously this is the least of our problems, know what I mean? This has to change (for the better)
Lisa: Why is the ABIM and its crony organizations, powerful political elites and corporations working behind the scenes so vital to understand? Does the ABIM and it vast NGO network form a domestic fifth column undermining healthcare and the American society?
ReplyDeleteThe ABIM represents a snapshot of the serious corruption which is pandemic in our country. It is an interesting microcosm of decades of corruption and it points to people involved in decades of political corruption in a non-governmental non-profit certification organization. If one understands the ABIM's financial, "legal", and political scandals it becomes easier to understand just how pandemic are the systemic ills that plague our nation. It is very interesting where the facts lead us.
An investigation of the ABIM points to continued problems with processes and attitudes at the highest level of our government and the justice department which fails to hold corrupt political actors accountable who surreptitiously, if not boldly, use non-profit organizations for purposes that are political and financial.
What we understand about ABIM corruption in Philadelphia (and the ABMS in Chicago) gives us not only an edifying vignette of just how tangled the whole mess in our country is, but the investigation of the ABIM and its partners leads us strangely to the same bad actors involved in reckless treatment of state department emails also involved in a history of 'using' the ABIM and other quality assurance organizations to influence healthcare reform, and maintain a corrupt monetary scheme (MOC, certification)using millions of dollars for personal and political purposes.
The ABIM investigation leads us to the same bad actors who have been allowed to engage in more than the appearance of selling access to our government through the offices of the Department of State. The same bad actors and their cronies have engaged in public fraud involving non-profit quality assurance organizations and the creation of a foundation for political and to enrich their cronies for personal financial goals.
To cut through the chase, if we had an honest direct process in place to hold our leaders accountable Hillary and Bill Clinton and other politically/financially motivated parties like Christine Cassel in the late 1990's to the present would not have dared to use the ABIM and related network(s) of non-governmental organizations as a fifth column to undermine the healthcare system and democratic processes that we hold as foundational to our country.
If professional medical bureaucrats were held accountable, powerful state actors would not have access to these organizations with immunity form prosecution if they violate our laws. State actors appoint and control malleable/crony administrations and usurp the primary mission of organizations like the ABIM. The same state actors would not have access and control of a vast network of healthcare's non-profit medical partners if our compliance and enforcement of laws were more strict.
Had bad state actors been held accountable in the past, they would never have been allowed to be involved in our healthcare system to the degree that they have, and they would not have been allowed to give over the keys of ABMS offices, granting power to their corrupt partisan cronies.
In today's political climate, almost anyone would be at risk of losing their job if one came out and stated that the ABIM and related non-governmental organizations have formed a powerful domestic "fifth column" designed to regulate/dominate physicians politically and financially. In short these organizations were used by politicians and large corporations to undermine the healthcare system and inculcate cost rationing into that reformed healthcare system to make it more financially viable.
ReplyDeleteThe mainstream media, medical boards, foundations, medical societies, graduate educational organizations, and government health related agencies and bureaus, in order to ration finite medical resources this "fifth column" has been thrust against the American people to limit healthcare and personal rights--care and rights we hold as integral to our moral and democratic institutions.
These bad state actors who should be held to a higher standard of ethics and the law continue to plague medicine and our country. And to date the only sanctions against them have been the loss of a license to practice law.
We have reason to believe partisan politics illegally infiltrated, manipulated and still dominates the ABIM and the ABIM Foundation. A simple study and history of the ABIM reveals that our healthcare institutions are not safe from bad actors who have not only damaged the good image of our country, but have also been responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent lives. And yes the ABIM is less important, but it is most certainly relevant to everything else that is ill.
But given what we know and understand, it becomes more and more important.
What is unfortunate for many of us today is that, even in the most robust investigations of these bad state actors, the final results we would expect fall short of curtailing their corrupt influence and abuses of power.