Opinion

AMA brings medical and moral weight to quest for mental health parity

LETTER — Posted April 2, 2007

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Regarding "Time to pass mental health parity" (Editorial, March 12): This editorial in American Medical News is timely, appropriate and most welcome. Those of my colleagues who ask "What has organized medicine done for me lately?" need to see it. The clout and medical-moral authority that the AMA carries should not be ignored. An editorial like this needs to be placed in all specialty journals, not just psychiatric.

We need, as a society, to recognize that a society is only as good as those who are most underserved or helped. The moral and ethical weight of the House of Medicine is appropriately bringing its pressure to bear on the decision-makers. This editorial should be used to reach out to my colleagues in psychiatry to encourage them to join the AMA and to demonstrate that ultimately we are physicians working for the whole patient.

Garry M. Vickar, MD, St. Louis

Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2007/04/02/edlt0402.htm.

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