October 2005: Protecting Family Rights; Francine and Alan Yurko shared the touching and shocking story of Alan’s unjust imprisonment from 1999 until his release in 2005 for what was claimed to have been a case of shaken baby syndrome after the death of Baby Alan in Nov, 1997. Students were shocked to discover that the legal cascade initiated upon alerting Children’s Services could have such dire but carelessly doled out consequences on families.

Dr. Miller presented his research on the often ignored Temporary Brittle Bone Disease and shared stories of families damaged by misdiagnosis/ lazy physicians followed by aggressive child service actions.

January 2006: Legal Issues in Practicing Medicine; National speaker, Mr. Andrew Schlafly, lawyer for AAPS, flew in from NY to present legal issues in practicing medicine including sham peer reviews, Medicare filing prosecutions and pain script prosecutions.

-This speaker really opened my eyes to the challenges that we face as physicians and suspicion that the general public has for our medical knowledge and our personal treatment decisions. We must defend our credibility and support those physicians who have been wrongly accused by continually educating ourselves in evidence based medicine and work towards building trusting relationships with our patients. Thanks AAPS!

Julia, MSII

February 2006: The Economics that Move Global Health Issues; International speaker, Professor Robert Lawson of Capital University came out from Columbus, Ohio to lecture on the economics that move global health issues as related to the Economic Freedom of the World Report, of which he is a co-author. Avoiding rhetoric and, instead using third party statistics from 127 countries, Professor Lawson presented compelling evidence that countries with free market policies have stunningly less violence, less child labor, higher literacy rates, higher rates of immunization, and longer life-spans of their citizens.

A video clip of successful entrepreneurial health care endeavors in poor countries was also shown. Better health can be achieved through wealth building programs better than aid programs.

Books presented: Pyramid, Eradicating Poverty Through Profits - C.K. Prahalad and In Defense of Globalization - Jagdish Bhagwati

Professor Robert Lawson’s website: freetheworld.com

-AAPS meetings have been one of those important and timely reminders for busy medical students that we must engage in the larger world, whether it be through economics, politics, or our own profession’s legal issues.

Discussions that allow expansive thinking and references to something other than a medical textbook continue long after the actual meeting. Thank you to AAPS for supporting well rounded, critically thinking medical students at Wright State.

Nessa MSII