Academy Refutes ACG, ASGE Stance on Privileges

The Academy sent an AAFP legal opinion to two organizations recently to counter a legal opinion the societies had earlier mailed to hospitals. At issue are privileges for family physicians in gastroenterology.

"It is most unfortunate that the ACG (American College of Gastroenterology) and ASGE (American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy) have chosen to distribute materials which are designed to intimidate hospital medical staffs and administrators into discriminating against family physicians and other primary care physicians," AAFP Board Chair Mary Frank, M.D., of Mill Valley, Calif., wrote in her Jan. 11 letter. That the ACG and ASGE "would engage in such an effort to discredit competent peer physicians is, in our opinion, unprofessional," Frank said.

The legal opinion Frank mailed to ACG and ASGE said hospitals would risk liability if they based decisions to grant or deny privileges on factors other than the demonstrated experience, training and competence of family physicians. Frank had mailed AAFP's legal opinion in December to U.S. hospital administrators and chairs of family medicine departments.

"The AAFP has made repeated requests to dialogue with the ACG and the ASGE on the subject of education in endoscopy, and those requests have all been ignored," Frank said in her Jan. 11 letter to ACG and ASGE. "I will repeat that offer in the hope that we can address these clinical issues and our differences as colleagues rather than adversaries."