Symposium tackles health care issues

Monday, January 27, 1997

HEALTH:

UCLA holds forum to consider politics of medicine, plight of
uninsured AmericansBy Kathryn Combs

Daily Bruin Contributor

Safe, under the protective umbrella of student health insurance,
many students at UCLA may not realize how lucky they are. For the
millions of uninsured Americans, treatment for even the common cold
can become a major financial commitment.

According to Amal Trivedi, a second-year medical student at
UCLA, this is precisely why it is time for medical students to
become active in policy issues. He says that as future physicians,
it is not only their responsibility, but their obligation to
deliver adequate and timely medical services to Americans of all
income levels.

The 1997 UCLA Health Care Symposium, titled "Common Needs and
Common Dreams: Delivering Quality Health Care in America," was held
on Saturday by Medical Students Organized to Create Activism and
Leadership (MSOCAL).

In response to federal proposals to change the way American
health care is provided, the day-long conference was designed to
teach medical students the political and social skills necessary to
identify and provide quality health care to patients.

Three second-year medical students at UCLA, Amal Trivedi, David
Feldman and Francis Chang, designed and implemented the program.
With the help of sponsors such as the UCLA Medical Student Council
and the Arnold P. Gold Foundation, they were able to secure funding
for the event and line up prominent speakers such as Dr. Reed
Tuckson, president of Drew University, and Dr. Gerald Levey, dean
of the UCLA Medical School.

Other event speakers included Mark Finucane, director of health
services for the Los Angeles County and former governor of
Massachusetts, and 1988 presidential candidate Michael Dukakis.

"As you can see, the symposium, has been organized, administered
and supported through fund raising by three remarkable second-year
medical students in the middle of what is one of the most
challenging experiences that a person can undertake," Levey
added.

In an effort to teach these students about the political issues
they face as future medical professionals, the student founders
enlisted the help of 40 of their peers in organizing the event.

"As a medical student, there’s a tendency to bury yourself in
the books. It was our intention to have this be a part of what
every medical student is exposed to," Trivedi said.

Saturday’s discussions focused on the lack of adequate health
care for the uninsured. According to several speakers, uninsured
Americans are receiving timely medical attention less often, and of
a lesser quality, due to both their lack of insurance and the
rising expense of health care.

"The game that we have to face today is lowering costs and
maintaining quality,"said Dr. Robert Brook, director of Health
Sciences for the RAND Corporation, a research organization with a
long affiliation with the UCLA School of Medicine.

"We kill more people in this country for lack of health
insurance than by guns," he said. "We must figure out how to spend
money better and wiser because we have the tools and technology to
make our political methods better. We can control cost."

Dukakis also spoke on the topic of poor government spending.
Addressing the symposium, he said the American government spends
approximately $1 trillion on health care per year.

"Here we are, about to embark on a new century and we are the
only advanced industrialized nation in the world that doesn’t
guarantee all of its citizens comprehensive health care," he
said.

"We are spending double on average than most other advanced
industrialized nations in the world and they seem to be able to
deliver quality health care at a price substantially below us to
all of their citizens," he added.

Among other speakers present at the symposium, a panel discussed
the changing healthcare environment.

"Doctors need to be trained to serve as advocates for broader
health care issues,"said Feldman, one of the event’s founders.
"Students must train for the responsibility now. The definition of
activism, to me, is seeing a problem and identifying a
solution."

Chang, who was also a symposium founder, stated that because of
the current political climate, "This is the right time to
educate."

"People have to recognize that managed care, managed competition
and capitalism in medicine is not going away," he said.

GENEVIEVE LIANG/Daily Bruin

Talk radio host Warren Olney moderates a discussion during the
1997 UCLA Health Care Symposium on Saturday.