It was welcome news to all neurosurgeons that Peter Carmel, MD, had been elected in June 2002 to the Board of Trustees of the American Medical Association. However, in the “Newsline” article (Summer 2002, page 5) you state that this is the first time in the AMA’s 175-year history that a neurosurgeon had served on its board.
How fleeting is fame for all of us! I remember AANS working diligently and successfully to elect H. Thomas Ballantine, MD, professor of neurosurgery at Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital, as a trustee of AMA in 1978. He served with distinction for three years, then was a candidate for AMA president-elect.
However, it is quite noteworthy to have eight surgeons serving concurrently on a board that has been dominated by non-surgeons for so many years. Now AMA might persuade Congress to excise the malignancy of medical malpractice and the privileged class of trial attorneys from our legal system. If they need a few hints, I suggest review of Clinical Neurosurgery, Vol. XXV, Chapter 48.
-Byron C. Pevehouse, MD, Bellevue, Wash.
Editorial Note: As the AMA Archives confirmed, H. Thomas Ballantine, MD, now deceased, indeed served on the AMA Board of Trustees from 1977 to 1980. He was secretary-treasurer for the 1979-80 year and in 1980 was nominated for president-elect.
Dr. Pevehouse was president of the AANS from 1983 to 1984 and president of the Society of Neurological Surgeons from 1986 to 1987.
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