| Drug Addiction proves to be an occupational hazard for many physicians who develop dependency to therapeutically accessible substances. The Medical Board of California faced with the problem of sick doctors, pioneered non-punitive programs for impaired practitioners. The objective of these health programs has been to divert the licensee from severe consequences, and rehabilitate and restore the physician to his or her medical practice. Presently there are impaired physician programs operating in every state.; Participants in these diversion type programs are confidentially monitored to ensure their safe medical practice and undergo periodic random urine tests and attend regular therapeutic group meetings for three to five years in order to graduate from the program. Most programs report very high rates of recovery among physicians.; However, a public interest law advocacy has challenged the safety and necessity of the Diversion Program of the Medical Board of California ever since its inception in 1981. Through reports and testimonies, an attorney from the Center for Public Interest Law has urged legislators to protect California citizens from potentially dangerous physicians by abolishing the Diversion Program, and removing the impaired physician from his or her medical practice. In fact the Diversion Program is scheduled to sunset in 2008.; Through an archival research and analysis of the applicable theories from the interest group and agenda-setting literatures, this research attempts to predict the outcome of this legislative debate. Necessary assets by interest group and winning agenda-setting strategies for legislative success are outlined and organized in charts for easy comparison. While it may be intuitive to suppose that organized medicine represented by the California Medical Association, and other entities will not succumb to the challenge by an attorney from small advocacy Center for Public Interest Law (CPIL), comparisons indicate otherwise.; Available documents demonstrate that CPIL has used many effective agenda-setting strategies, while Diversion Program has acquiesced. In fact, as much as the attorneys from the California Medical Association have tried to respond to the challenge, the powerful umbrella of the organized medicine has not protected the addicted physicians from the torrent of challenges and restriction in California. |
