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It’s time for the American physician to stand up.

We will no longer bend to the tyranny of bureaucracy, the venom of litigation or the naivete of legislation. For we have spent many a night sweating on the phone as our dear administrators slept comfortably in their beds stuffed with hundred dollar bills. Our experience standing in the line of fire dwarfs that of any attorney questioned by his client’s peers. And we have tended to more constituents personally than any verbose and hyperbolic politician.

Yet the doom and gloom of our current health care system is being flung belligerently at our feet. The American physician is beaten, battered and toiling in a cocoon of self-hatred. Caught in a tangled web that binds, our detractors count on our sacred healing oath to imprison us in a system that becomes more constrictive by the day. We are too proud to stand down. We are too dedicated to our patients to bow as the chains are pulled tighter.

We have been judged by the outlying ice that melts at our extremes, and denied the strength of our inner core. We are solid. We are dependable.

You will legislate, you will regulate, you will under compensate. And we will nod our heads willingly.

But when you attack our pride, our character, you cross the line.

We have spent every waking moment since childhood planning for this. We have studied more hours than most can conceive, We have worked while others rested and than worked some more.

We have been placed in the most difficult of situations. We have had to question God regularly. We question ourselves.

We stand tall and proud as American physicians.

We will not let you cast us as villains.

Jordan Grumet is an internal medicine physician and founder, CrisisMD. He blogs at In My Humble Opinion.

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