Today I’d like to go over some of the resolutions passed during the House of Delegates at the KMA Annual Meeting. I chose these to go over as they particularly hit home for many of us.
Two resolutions relating to the opioid crises underwent debate and as is supposed to happen in a governing body, a good compromise was the end result. These were resolutions 8 and 10. Resolution 8 pertained to the administration of Naloxone in drug overdose situations. This encouraged physicians to reconsider opioid management and to co-prescribe naloxone when absolutely unavailable. There’s probably not many of us out there who haven’t had a brush with someone on drugs near and dear to us. The other resolution dealing with opioids was to reaffirm the KMA’s position to not increase the scope of prescribing to non-physicians. We do not need more prescribers of opioids. This should be left to physicians and this should be a “no brainer.”
Resolution 12 relates to school nutrition. Any of us who have been athletic parents have worried that our young athletes may not be getting the proper diet to carry out their after-school sporting events. Many parents have complained that their children were not getting enough calories in school lunches since the Obama regulations went into place. The Lexington Medical Society presented the resolution to make K-12 nutritional standards higher than the 2017 nutritional levels. This was approved unanimously.
The last resolution I’ll discuss pertains to CPR training in high schools. This is very important. I have long been a supporter of basic life skills being taught in our schools. CPR is a very good place to start. If we teach this in our school systems, eventually everyone will be able to perform this life-saving practice to some degree and the life they save could be someone very close to them.
This has been an overview of just a few of the resolutions passed by the 2017 House of Delegates. Other resolutions have dealt with insurance reimbursement, electronic health records, government regulations and CME requests. The entire list can be viewed on the KMA website, www.kyma.org.
Have a Happy Halloween. Remember, it was rumored the first medical school was moved from Lexington to Louisville because the students were robbing the graves for anatomy classes and the good folks of Lexington complained.
