President's Message to the Virginia Orthopedic Society
Dear Fellow VOS members:
The 57th Annual Meeting of the Virginia Orthopaedic Society at the Norfolk Waterside Marriott was a huge success. I was to express our thanks once again to our past president, John Schaffer, M.D., his program chairman, Brick Campbell, M.D., and the staff at the Ruggles Service Corporation for a great meeting. Dr. James Herndon, Immediate Past President of the AAOS, spoke to our membership about the Academy's Protect Access to Care and Treatment. campaign for meaningful federal medical liability reforms. Tool kits and additional resources to help our members educate and involve their patients in solving the medical liability crisis are available online at www.pactproject.org.
If you have not already done so, please send a corporate or personal check to the Medical Liability reform Campaign, AAOS, 6300 North River Road, Rosemont, IL 60018 to support this crucial campaign.
On the state and local level we must continue to fight for liability insurance and health insurance reforms. In an effort to better serve our members needs we will be sending out a brief survey pertaining to the utilization of in-office ancillary services, liability insurance costs and what insurance company hassles our members and their staff continue to experience. The Board of VOS has also decided to form a political action committee "Ortho-PAC" to help support our legislative agenda.
Paramount to the success of this initiative it is essential that all of our members participate in our new "Adopt a Legislator Program." Please go to our website www.vos.org and click on the legislative action tab. Under the heading local resources, click on, find your representative in the General Assembly. Enter your address information to identify your state Delegate and Senator and their contact information.
If you don't already know them on a personal basis, please send them a letter of introduction on your letterhead and ask to meet face to face to convey your concerns regarding your ability to continue to deliver quality musculoskeletal care to your patients and their constituents. Get to know them and invite them to shadow you in the office. If they know who we are and what we do, we can call on them for their legislative support in the future.
Please send the VOS a copy of the letter you send to your legislator. You can reach VOS by mail, email, or FAX. This contact information is available to you at our website at www.vos.org under "Contact Us."
Get involved. It's your future and you can make a difference.
