General

The Florida Society of General Surgeons (FSGS) thanks you for your continued support. We have been able to voice your concerns both at state and national forums. The support of FSGS has empowered its leadership to be become increasingly involved in influencing the future of the patient-physician relationship.

The most important physician role is to take care of our patients. Our results are optimized by spending the necessary time with each of our patients. Healthy relationships are built upon understanding one another, realizing and attaining each other's expectations and instilling in one another the sense that we did our best. However, the amount of time we are allowed to spend with our patients has been eroded by an ever increasing influential intrusive bureaucracy. Physicians have to spend more time performing tasks that were previously delegated to other support staff. Concurrently, the economic strain on our practices continues to erode our resources because of the outdated archaic SGR formula. We urge you to contact your congressional representatives regarding a permanent fix to the flawed Medicare payment system.

For many years, medicine has been transformed by the business world into a commodity. The total cost of our healthcare system has become disproportionately consumed by activities far removed from the patient-physician relationship.

Only with your continued support and increasing involvement in creating a model for the future of healthcare delivery will we be able to strengthen the patient–physician relationship. This relationship requires a more appropriate utilization of our time and allotment of financial resources. It must be allowed to flourish in order to maximize patient safety.

The FSGS is looking forward to helping everyone take care of their patients and each other. We are also making initial plans for an FSGS annual meeting within the next year that will help bring us together, build congeniality and esprit de corps.