Advocacy for the specialty and the safety of our patients remains one of the highest priorities of ASA. The Daily News asked meeting attendees how important advocacy was to them.

Gustavo Angaramo, M.D.
University of Massachusetts
Worcester, Massachusetts

“Health care is changing and we will be taking on more patients in the future, so the key is to keep pushing together. If we all plan together about how to take care of people, particularly with the advent of the Perioperative Surgical Home, we are going to be taking care of patients for a long period after surgery, and anesthesiology could be the subspecialty for the future.”

Kevin Tarrant, M.D.
Oregon Anesthesiology Group
Corvallis, Oregon

“It is tremendously important. If you are not letting your opinions be known, then how can you expect somebody to do what you want? The other groups are out there telling politicians what they expect. We need to do better.”

Patricia Moore, M.D.
Anesthesia Services, PA
Wilmington, Delaware

“It is essential as the health care market has evolved for us to be able, as physicians, to demonstrate leadership and direction so our patients will be able to have the best health care they can have. We need to be intimately involved in not just the patient care, but also in the development of new systems of health care that will come forward. It speaks to our need to provide better care to the people we are committed to caring for.”

Christopher Key, M.D.
VA Hospital
Birmingham, Alabama

“I work at the VA, and there is an issue at the VA with the Nursing Handbook being rewritten to allow advance practice nurses to practice on their own without supervision. I think that is an extremely dangerous possibility that could eventually go out to the general public. The physician-led team is of utmost importance in the Veteran population and the general population. ASA’s advocacy is one of the big organizations to keep that in place.