The Medinnovationblog asked an intriguing question (at least to me): “Who speaks for doctors?”

You don’t have to read in the medical blogosphere all that much to get the idea that doctors are quite unhappy with the way their profession is going. Yet, how much lobbying power do doctors exert? It doesn’t seem like they wield that much pressure. (The ongoing writers’ strike makes me wonder what would life be like if doctors unionized. I realize a strike is unimaginable for a lot of reasons, but it seems to me that they ought to have more clout as a force in society than they do now.)

I may be wrong, but there doesn’t seem to be much of a national means for doctors to protect themselves from harm. To pick one of four possibilities at random, for the issue of medical malpractice, it would be interesting to see the results if doctors started a national campaign for health courts and lobbied for it in Washington and in the states. I’m not endorsing this issue or the other three proffered alternatives. I’m just saying it would be interesting to see doctors get behind one of them and exert some muscle. Other groups can do this. Is there some reason doctors can’t?