The California Medical Association (CMA) has launched is engaging physician leaders at every medical staff in California in the important work of mobilizing to defeat the new initiative threat to obliterate the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA), which has qualified for the 2022 ballot. It is essential CMA replicate and expand upon the work it did in defeating Prop. 46 in 2014 – when MICRA was last threatened – to gather significant financial support from medical staff for its Political Education Fund (PEF). PEF enables CMA’s physician education and mobilization work in advance of next year’s critical election, as well as other important work such as protecting medical staff autonomy.

This non-profit fund, differentiated from the normal political donations received by CMA’s Political Action Committee (CALPAC), is critical to CMA’s work to protect MICRA and protect patient safety. Medical staffs are permitted and encouraged to donate non-profit dollars to PEF and may do so by contacting the manager of this program, Nathan Skadsen, at nskadsen@cmadocs.org. Medical staffs may also be contacted by a CMA physician leader wishing to set up a presentation on this important threat at your next medical staff meeting, and CALPAC encourages you to approve such requests.

Medical staffs were critical to the success of CMA’s efforts to protect MICRA in 2014, donating over $3 million. The CALPAC Board would like to thank the hospital medical staffs and physician fundraising leaders for their financial support last year, as well as those below who’ve given in 2021:

Barstow Community Hospital
Damadora Rajasekhar, M.D.

Community Memorial Hospital
Jeffrey Brackett, MD and Deborah Carlson, M.D.

Doctors Medical Center
John Pfeffer, M.D.

San Antonio Regional Hospital
Christopher Tsai, M.D.

Sharp Grossmont
Venugopal Prabaker, M.D., and Damadora Rajasekhar, M.D.

St. Mary Medical Center
Damadora Rajasekhar, M.D.

Victor Valley Global Medical Center
Damadora Rajasekhar, M.D.

For more information about the Political Education Fund or to help coordinate a presentation or contribution from your medical staff, please contact Nathan Skadsen at nskadsen@cmadocs.org.