Once upon a time when I sat on my state’s medical association board, the ophthalmologists in South Carolina were under attack with a bill that would expand scope of practice for the state’s optometrists into the arena of surgery. There was no question that this was clearly outside their education and training, but sometimes facts and truth can get lost in the legislative shuffle. As someone who is passionate about patient safety and high-quality patient-centered medical care, I was happy to get involved with this fight on behalf of my colleagues. It wasn’t my battle specifically, but either you believe in the education and training that a medical education and residency affords or you don’t. And you are either with us (the House of Medicine) or you are against us. There just isn’t any middle ground.
I was fairly politically active at the time, so when I was asked to...
