VOLUME 26, ISSUE 2
H.A. Tillmann Hein, MD TSA Past President
one single sentence promised to help. and she did. Within a very short time, she filed an amendment, carried that amendment to the three decisive committee chairs and the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and persuaded all four of them to include her amendment. Of course, that amendment never needed to be included, but it effectively squashed that robust public option plan. If that had come to pass, it would have had an impact worth billions of dollars for American Anesthesiologists.”
The fourth advocacy action happened toward the end of Dr. Hein’s TSA Presidency. “An effort advanced by an organization claiming to represent the rural hospitals was asking the Governor of Texas to opt out of the supervision requirement for nurse anesthetists,” says Dr. Hein. “That effort was thwarted, and I’m quite pleased with the outcome of that. We did this with a very low financial investment in comparison to the very expensive campaigns that were forced upon the State Societies of Anesthesiologists in California and in Colorado where they both lost, despite investing way more money than we had to invest to avoid this bad outcome in Texas.”
“What are some of the challenges you faced during your year of Presidency?” “My year as president of the TSA was a non-legislative year. Therefore, the focus of the president in such a non-legislative year is to deal with regulatory agencies,” he said. “So the majority of my time was spent in preparing for testimony at both the Texas Department of Insurance and the Texas Medical Board. We had to deal with the rule making process for Senate Bill 7, and that had led me to Austin numerous times. And the other issue that was very time consuming was the rule making at the Texas Medical Board as it related to Office Based Anesthesia.” He went on to add that the issue that took all the time toward the end was the attempt by rural hospitals to get the Texas Governor to opt out of the CRNA supervision requirement.
“Are there other things that you would count as accomplishments during your Presidency?” I asked him. “The thing that touches my heart the most,” he said, “is that I’m very pleased that I had suggested setting up not only an Art Committee for the TSA, but also have an Art Exhibit. And to see how beautiful that was at our annual meeting in 2012 was just a very pleasant experience for me. I know that it will be continued at the 2013 meeting, and I’m highly pleased with that.”
Making a reference to the History Committee, Dr. Hein said, “I have long believed that we should honor history, learn from history, study history, and maybe avoid the mistakes that those who came before us made. I also think that particularly the past presidents, who have put in significant time in working for the interests of all anesthesiologists in Texas, have some experience to share, have some wisdom to share. To see that just go to waste or be forgotten is something that I would like to avoid.”
Dr. Hein continued “Another innovation that I suggested and has been implemented, is the institution of a research competition and research activity at our annual meeting. I hope that this will show beneficial effects. I’m very pleased to see another initiative come to fruition: I suggested we institute the Dr. Bill King Award for advocacy by a resident, and we awarded the first award last year. I hope we’ll have a worthy awardee this year. The interest in the resident population in advocacy work is phenomenal. I’m highly pleased with that.”
