Posted on 11/19/2009 2:58:26 AM PST by Son House
In two days, the CEO of Mayo Clinic will step down. Wednesday morning, Dr. Denis Cortese gave his thoughts on the future of Mayo, health care reform, and his largest accomplishments.
"It feels good. It feels good to retire and move on to some bigger issues that I've developed a major interest in over the last 15 to 20 years. And it will give me a chance to concentrate on those."
After 40 years with Mayo Clinic, though, health care will always be a big issue for Dr. Denis Cortese. He started at Mayo as a medical student and ended up its CEO.
Cortese says one of his biggest accomplishments was getting the clinic to hone in on quality care and achieving good results. Now he says, it's time for the whole medical field to do the same.
"As a country, we haven't gotten in right in 30 years, and many of you have heard me say this before, but it's really because we're not addressing the right question. We're letting politics interfere with intelligent decision-making on how to take care of patients."
Cortese says Congress should look to reforming medicare first, because he says almost anything else won't make as big of an impact in the system. The problem, however, he say lawmakers have turned health care into a political issue instead of a scientific one.
As for Cortese's biggest regret, he says the Mayo board had the opportunity 15 years ago to make a change in the insurance industry.
"We see the future better than we saw it 15 years ago, and one of the issues is the insurance aspect of things. So, I've challenged our group to think about that Mayo has to start its own insurance company or create some kind of insurance product."
After stepping down, Cortese won't be slowing down. He will head to Arizona State University to continue working in the health care reform effort as the director of its health care delivery and policy center.
Dr. John Noseworthy will take Cortese's position as Mayo's CEO. The two have been working together for several months to make the transition go smoothly.
Let the Medical Professional exodus begin! Thanks Democratics Party!
they’re going to usher in a democrat into the ceo position which will proceed to destroy the mayo clinic reputation and success
That famous medical establishment will eventually be renamed “The Mao Clinic” after one of this administration’s heroes.
“they’re going to usher in a democrat into the ceo position which will proceed to destroy the mayo clinic reputation and success”
That will be the number one priority of his replacement. Libs have never seen anything that did`nt need “fixing.”
There is going to be a mass exodous of doctors “retiring” if Obamacare passes. It is going to be a nightmare for Americans.
Nurses will hang in there until the ethical violations become too much to bear. Most are not into killing grannie or withholding any care needed by their patients. I know one nurse who has already made plans to bug out of the nursing profession.
She said if they don’t take it over this time, they will sooner or later and she is not working in the nursing profession run by bureaucrats who have no respect for human life.
She said the ethics and standards expressed by liberals are not the ethics of US medicine. It will be a process of the government using doctors and nurses to kill people and make them suffer. I was surprised because she is a big wheel nurse at a top medical center who loves nursing.
“Alright, give me a Hamm on 5, hold the Mayo.”
That mass exodus has already started. I know two docs who just put in their notice and just about all I know over the age of 50 plan to if the new health care bill goes through.
It’s not about money. Many of them stand to make more money with the new plan because they currently collect less than half of what they bill. Even if the government cuts reimbursement by 20% they’ll still come out ahead.
Their complaints center around rationing and non-medical bureaucrats making medical decisions.
You are right about that. But it also has to do with them being forced to become government workers and the government setting their income. Neurosurgeons who incur medical school expenses into their 40’s in order to begin their practice, will be made bankrupt by this scheme. So it is about medical ethics and independence and it is about ambition which will now be dictated and controlled by the government. Most doctors are very ambitious.
You’re right. Most doctors are ambitious. Especially neurosurgeons. They know what it is like to work intensively round the clock and delay their gratification for years. To suggest that specialists and non-specialists should be paid the same is ridiculous.
Class envy is a strange phenomenon.
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