Referring to the letter by Dr. Paul Pagel titled “On Providers” in the April 2013 ASA NEWSLETTER I can only add a vociferous IT’S ABOUT TIME! This is the third time I have written the NEWSLETTER about this term “provider,” which is merely a derogation of the professional accomplishments of every certified health care professional to whom that pernicious, odious term is applied.
When I entered the profession of anesthesiology in 1969, the ASA was busy trying to establish our specialty as worthy of the status of physician and as constituting the practice of medicine. Now, it is 2013, and ASA is still busy with this task. It seems to me ASA is also busily shooting itself in its foot, ankle, knee and on up to its heart by constantly referring to its members, who it so desperately seeks to establish as physicians practicing medicine in the eyes of the...
