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Physician's Organizing Committee
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Neighborhoods: Nob Hill, Union Square
450 Sutter St
San Francisco, CA 94199
(415) 434-9335
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7 reviews for Physician's Organizing Committee
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Sri L.
Berkeley, CA
7/10/2009
The interactions I've had with this group have so far indicated that they are responsible, trustworthy defenders of high quality, accessible health care for the public.
They are working their tails off to make large corporate institutions such as Sutter Health (who owns many of the local hospitals) accountable for their dubious behaviors, namely shutting down the free psych ward (as if SF needs more whackos on the street), shutting down neonatal intensive care, shutting down free charitable osteopathic care and med student training programs.
The bottom line is that the hospital is acting like a for-profit institution while taking insane amounts of tax cuts (THAT's OUR MONEY) due to their nonprofit status. P.O.C. is simply trying to notify the community and public officials.
They are acting in our best interest, on our behalf and they are doing it for free. I don't get how some people see this as a one star institution. I'd like to give ten.
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10
7
Matt R.
San Diego, CA
5/29/2009
I volunteered for Physician's Organizing Commitee, doing a tabling operation to get people interested in saving St. Luke's hospital. I also took one of their classes. The class detailed problems with the current economic system in a
very biased and in a cartoonishly inaccurate manner. This made me realize that they weren't interested in saving St. Luke's hospital as much as they wanted to get other people to
join their larger cause.
Based on my experiences and interactions with the group I determined that POC is somewhere near the intersection of wingnut and nutjob.
The group purports to be a non profit group that is fighting on the behalf of doctors, patients and the indigent. It is true that the group is able to get some doctors to volunteer services for people that are unable to pay or have a problem with their insurance company. However this is not the main purpose of the group. The core members of POC or cadre as they refer to themselves are in fact part of clandestine communist organization known as the National Labor Federation(NATLFED).
[
en.wikipedia.or]...
NATLFED was formed in the 1970s, in 1996 the leader and founder of NATLFED died. An article was written in the New York Times. A leader dead, a fringe group lives on
[
query.nytimes.c]...
The members of the group do not do anything violent or illegal. The core members "cadre" function more like a cult. They work about 14 hours a day "organizing" to change the system. For POC most of the time goes to tabling, picking up donated supplies from various businesses, and filling out paperwork for their extensive and tedious bureaucracy. A lot of this is busy work intended to keep themselves busy so they don't think too much about what it means to sacrifice their personal life for their abstract cause.
Do not support this group. Please make donations to other charity or nonprofit groups. Almost everybody donates to this group without having a real idea of the group's objectives.
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Gray T.
Oakland, CA
7/21/2009
Unlike most people who wrote a review already. I was a cadre to POC and to the larger organization POC interior cadre belonged to. While their strategy and goals are correct, their actual implementation is pathetic. They spend so much time writing reports and reports, especially on people they're trying to recruit and having secret unit (cell) meetings, among other meaningless tactics. Whether casual volunteers see it or not POC cadre are abusive to new interior cadre once one joins. Oh and they're also abusive to interior cadre that work in other similar organizations.
Of course this is a CULT and believe me, if you want to do advocacy, stop hospitals from being closed and recruit doctors to see those who can't afford it, go someplace else and stay away from these crazy people.
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2
15
Christine S.
San Francisco, CA
6/24/2009
A front for a political cult. End of story.
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Sohail H.
Oakland, CA
6/30/2009
I researched Physicians Organizing Committee after I started volunteering with them, about 6 months ago. Though much of what was written was discouraging, I saw that there is a SERIOUS disconnect between the negative things that are written about the organization and the POSITIVE things that I experience as a volunteer.
One of the people commenting below has never been in before, but has read about something we supposedly did. I am not entirely sure how you can judge our organization when you have no previous experience with us, and, moreover, base this analysis on some stuff you read on a website once. The one guy commenting below, who only came in once, has no perspective with which to judge the organization. We have volunteers coming in 7 days a week working on benefit cases and our office is constantly flooded with calls from doctors whom our medical advocates are working with. Right now we're working with doctors to stop the shut down of San Leandro Hospital in addition to fighting the continued cuts at St. Luke's Hospital while working with doctors struggling to treat Medicare patients, and the list goes on.
There are things written about the organization that are true and factual. Volunteers do work long hours. This, however, is conditional on the amount of time they are actually able to provide. We are all volunteers. It would be easy for you to understand why we work long hours when you see how much work is involved in making change happen. There is indeed an obvious interest among those in POC to find full time organizers, or cadre, and this is no secret. I am not entirely sure what the problem with this is, since unions and other such organizations have full time organizers as well. The only real difference is that their organizers are salaried, while ours are completely volunteer. I also resent the fact that some people would assume a person would be so easily duped into spending their precious time working for a cause that has no end. Show me another way to wrest control of patient care away from profit-motivated interests. Trust me, I've looked. Most of these organizations are reformist at best, trying to patch-up the broken medical system that we have today, rather than working to build the basis for a new one, one predicated on the Hippocratic philosophy of "...I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients ... and do no harm to anyone...." The system we see today is one that is predicated on the philosophy of the bottom line, generating a return for monied investors.
How these things make us a "cult" is beyond my ability to comprehend. Moreover, any person who studied the labor movement for more than ten minutes would realize these types of accusations have been levied against every successful labor movement since the dawn of labor movements. The success of these lies and deceit are completely predicated on the willful ignorance of the individuals they are manufactured to fool. In the 1870's to 80's, Franklin B. Gowen, president of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, tried the same thing in his manufacture of the 'Molly Maguires' in order to demonize the organizing forces of coal miners - people striking for their safety and for the sustenance of their families. Overnight these men were turned from workers striking for a safe place to work and time to spend with their families into "...a secret Irish terroristic organization whose end was the destruction of society...." The mainstream media of the day took up this line, and the public believed it without dissent. Nineteen innocent men were hung for it.
Defending patients' right to care, fighting for doctors being singled out for standing up for their patients, teaching them how to organize and saving hospitals are all no easy feats. No, that's not all we do. Yes, there is a lot of other work involved. No, we don't always succeed. But I challenge you to find something better. Find anything that has worked better in the past 70 years to make lasting change in protecting the rights of patients against run-away profiteering that hasn't already been undermined and eliminated by government agencies or big-business interests. I'll join up. Until then, I'm going to stick to the only winning plan that we have. There are those of you who would choose not to work with us because you have obligations, other priorities, or feel that this work is just too damn hard. I understand, I can't and won't hold that against you.
But, for those of you willing to spend a few hours to find out what all the hub-bub is about, call us to set up an orientation and stay to work on a case, or do patient advocacy with a doctor, or go to a public hearing to fight healthcare cuts. No previous experience is required, but a desire to work for what you believe in is a must.
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lucifer c.
San Francisco, CA
8/31/2008
I just read in disgust on an e-mail list I belong to that these jerks from the Physicians Organizing Committee came to the Castro this weekend to set up a table at 18th and Castro to promote their organization. The location is traditionally a spot for the recently deceased to be honored with flowers and loving messages. Usually the recently departed are people important to the neighborhood and community. But Friday, the Physicians Organizing Committee set up their table ON TOP of the spontaneous Del Martin shrine!! They became belligerent and rude when informed of their sacrilege claiming it was a "public space" and they discouraged mourners from placing flowers there! They obvious don't deserve respect if they refuse to show respect! What losers!
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5
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michelle g.
San Francisco, CA
10/16/2007
Every Friday we have left over food at the restaurant, and every Friday, we give some of this food to POC.
It's a ritual: They call, we chat, they send someone down for the food, they update me about their current battles, they invite me to dinner, I usually decline.
POC does not have a website, but they do have a mission. If I could synthesize their stance, it would be something like "they seek to organize doctors and members of the community at large to caretake the medical community's ethical core". Those are my quotes and my synthesis, mind you. I haven't checked with them to see how they want to be represented if at all.
I first encountered POC while they were tabling at Andronico's Park and Shop. They contacted me incessentaly but I was (sigh) not available to do the good work.
On Cinco de Mayo of last year, we got an order for a delivery of $60 or so worth of food to a doctor's office, courtesy of a pharmeceutical company. Since Cinco de Mayo is our busiest day of the year, I told them we wouldn't be able to make the delivery. The rep's reply was "Money is no object. We'll give you $100 to bring it."
To make a long story short, I acquiesed and decided to ho' for the man too, despite my supposed super ethical stance. I got off the elevator on the wrong floor and started to panic. This was our busiest day of the year. I had to get back to the restaurant. As fate would have it, right in front of me, yes like a beacon, shone POC's open door. "Help me, please! I have to deliver this overpriced food to some pharmaceutical whore's luncheon!" I cried. Ever the practiced volunteer army, they leapt to my aid. And for this, I remain forever in their debt.
POC is about as down as you can get. No payroll. No website. No non profit status. No gimmicks. No dressing up as surgeons or throwing syringes or hunger strikes. They are serious about their business and definitely don't want to be perceived as quackish. They fight the little-known battles like the St. Luke psychiatric inpatient unit closure or the filthy filthy TAX FREE $1,000,000,000 bond approved to Sutter Hospital Corporation or the Emergency Room closure at Natividad Hospital in Salinas. Boring stuff, yes, but kind of critical to a healthy society.
They pretty much rule.
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