Annual Medicare payment cuts, growing administrative burdens and continued threats to the patient-physician relationship are just some of the challenges contributing to the snowballing problem of physician burnout.
The AMA’s new president, Bruce A. Scott, MD, proclaimed in his inaugural address at the 2024 AMA Annual Meeting in Chicago that he is ready to take them on.
“As a physician in an independent private practice, I live these issues every day,” said Dr. Scott, an otolaryngologist and president of Kentuckiana Ear, Nose & Throat, a private practice based in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky.
“I see my colleagues struggling,” he added. “I feel the urgency of the moment and I will bring that urgency to my presidency. You better believe I’m ready to fight. Fight for you. Fight for us. Fight for our profession. Fight for our patients.” (Read Dr. Scott’s complete remarks.)
Citing the grim statistics related to professional burnout, which include the growing numbers of physicians who intend to either reduce their hours or leave the profession entirely, Dr. Scott declared: “We cannot afford to lose even one more doctor!”
Outstanding record of physician advocacy
The 2018–2019 president of the Kentucky Medical Association, Dr. Scott served four years as speaker of the AMA House of Delegates and four years as vice speaker before that. His inauguration as the AMA’s 179th president is the pinnacle of his long and active participation in the nation’s largest and oldest physician organization.
He attended his first AMA meeting as a medical student and has attended 72 consecutive meetings of the House of Delegates and 36 AMA presidential inaugurations.
“I’ve got to say, this one is my favorite,” Dr. Scott joked as he acknowledged several of the former AMA presidents in attendance—and one who wasn’t: the late Donald J. Palmisano, MD, JD, for whom a chair was left empty on the stage behind him.
“Donald was my mentor when I was ...the young physician on the board, and he probably wondered what he did to deserve that punishment,” Dr. Scott said of Dr. Palmisano, AMA president from 2003–2004. “I know he is here with me tonight in spirit, as he always promised he would be at my inauguration.”
Dr. Scott will become the third AMA president in the last decade from Kentucky, following Dr. Ardis Dee Hoven, MD, (2013–2014) and Steven J. Stack, MD (2015–2016).
Life-changing intervention
Along with his other family members, Dr. Scott thanked his 96-year-old mother, who was there during a moment that helped set him on his career path as a healer.
As a 12-year-old, Dr. Scott desperately reached out for something to hold on to as he began falling from a ladder in his garage. His hand was pierced by a hook from which a sparkplug wrench and other tools were hung. He was rushed to the emergency department with the hook sticking through his hand with the tools still attached.
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The Scotts were told their son would likely lose normal use of his hand and probably lose a couple of fingers. Instead of giving into this fate, his parents took him to Jewish Hospital, home to one of the premier hand surgery fellowship programs in the country at that time and where surgeon Joseph Kutz, MD, performed the operation.
“Dr. Kutz that day saved my hand and spared my fingers—forever changing the course of my life and, although I didn’t know it at the time, put me on the path that led me here tonight,” Dr. Scott said. “I am a surgeon using this very hand because of a doctor.”
Years later, and after becoming a physician himself, Dr. Scott would return to Jewish Hospital where he saw Dr. Kutz and thanked him for saving his hand. He also noted the patient thank-you’s he has received during his career.
“I have been blessed to receive so many kind notes from patients and words of appreciation and, as much as my patients say that I have helped them, it is their words, and their gratitude, that are my greatest rewards,” Dr. Scott said. “This is why we fight. They are why we fight.”
Dr. Scott pledged to fight for the patient-physician relationship, for science and medical ethics, for fair Medicare physician payment and against scope of practice expansions.
“The AMA is the physician’s powerful ally in Congress, in state capitals, in the courtroom, the boardroom and the exam room,” Dr. Scott said. “I am honored to be your president.”
