FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December 12, 2005

Contact: Paul Lyon, Executive Director, (570) 574-3089

 

Geisinger Ad in Medical Journal 
Belies ‘Doctor Exodus’ Claims

 

KINGSTON, PA (December 14, 2005) – In a clear indictment of the medical lobby’s fiction about a widespread “doctor exodus” from Pennsylvania, the Geisinger Health System recently published an ad in the New England Journal of Medicine bragging about how 100 doctors from 21 states and 52 medical specialties have come to Pennsylvania to work for the health-care conglomerate.

 

The ad, published in the Nov. 10 edition of the magazine, said:

 

"Why did 100 doctors from 21 states and 52 medical specialties pick up and move to Pennsylvania last year?

 

They chose to grow with Geisinger.

 

Last year, more than 100 physicians joined Geisinger Health System. And it's no wonder. While many health care organizations are struggling, Geisinger is experiencing unprecedented growth. At Geisinger you'll experience the support, camaraderie and professional challenges of a leading practice while discovering the charms of Pennsylvania living. We also cover your med/mal insurance costs, so you can focus on what's really important – your patients.

 

If you're looking for a solid career with a financially stable healthcare organization and a great quality of life, we invite you to come grow with Geisinger."

 

“We’ve been saying for years that the so-called ‘doctor exodus’ was a myth,” said Paul Lyon, Executive Director of The Committee for Justice for All. “Now, one of the largest health-care providers in the state is admitting it. The medical establishment should be ashamed for trying to scare patients into giving up their rights by claiming their doctors were leaving the state. The ‘malpractice crisis’ is pure fiction.”

 

The American Medical Association’s own numbers, as reported last year by the Harrisburg Patriot-News, show no evidence of a doctor exodus. Actually, the AMA data show an increase in the number of doctors from 28,026 in 1999 to 29,240 in 2003, during the height of the so-called “malpractice crisis.” In addition, the AMA’s reporting shows no significant change in the number of obstetrician/gynecologists and orthopedists practicing in the state during the same time period.

 

Faced with those contradictory numbers, the medical lobby argues that the real “crisis” is that young doctors aren’t choosing to stay in Pennsylvania after graduating medical school. But Lyon said the medical lobby has become a “victim of its own PR.”

 

“The success of the medical lobby’s propaganda war on victims’ rights has become a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he said. “They have been so successful in making doctors believe Pennsylvania is such a hostile place to practice that young doctors are scared to set up shop here. Like a Greek tragedy, their own deceptions have come back to haunt them.”

 

Anticipating Geisinger’s response to the criticism over its ad, Lyon said the fact that Geisinger self-insures and offers to pay liability insurance premiums for its doctors is irrelevant to the plausibility of a statewide doctor exodus because the AMA’s own numbers show there’s never been one.”

 

Furthermore, he said, the fact that Geisinger was able to grow and attract 100 new doctors to Pennsylvania , despite gouging by liability insurers, “only proves that a health-care system can flourish in the current environment if they are willing to innovate and adapt.”

 

CJA is a nonprofit Northeastern Pennsylvania advocacy group fighting to preserve the integrity of the civil justice system and the Constitutional right of all Americans to trial by a jury of their peers. For more information, please visit our web site at www.saynotocaps.org.

 

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