FP Report -- September 1999
Residents have right to organize, says AAFP
At the request of the 1998 National Congress of Family Practice Residents, the AAFP Board of Directors recently endorsed residents' right to form associations.
"The AAFP supports the right of residents to form associations which represent and advocate their interests and can negotiate on their behalf; these interests include, but are not limited to, patient care issues, working conditions and educational concerns. The AAFP does not support the right of residents to strike or withhold professional services." So says the policy the Board adopted during its mid-July meeting in Santa Fe, N.M.
(Below left) Sam Blackadar, M.D., of Silverdale, Wash., testified at the National Congress of Family Practice Residents. (Below right) Kyja Stygar, M.D., right, of Neenah, Wis., gives pointers to Anastasia Misakian, a medical student from Boston, during a soft-tissue surgery workshop at the conference. 
In 1976, the National Labor Relations Board said residents in private hospitals did not come under the protections of the National Labor Relations Act. Residents in public hospitals, considered more as employees than students, have continued to come under the NLRA.
Last year, the NCFPR asked the Academy to support residents' right to organize but not to strike, and the policy quoted above is the result.
"We hope all residents can approach their institutions about patient care issues and working conditions, such as lack of adequate supervision, and work with their faculty to address these issues," says David Meyers, M.D., of Washington, D.C., the 1999 NCFPR chair. "But when residents' concerns are continually ignored, organizing may be the only way to get things done."
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department. Copyright © 1999 by American Academy of Family Physicians.
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