It’s a question if our (Idaho’s) Attorney General will still be in his role in a couple years. We all know he wants to be Governor.
But I’m just giving him a heads up here, not that he asked. There’s a lawsuit coming our way. I’m sure he’d be happy to fight this one. The legislature would be too, but they don’t get to go to court. They just write the checks. With our tax dollars.
Back in 2022 the legislature decided WWAMI students should come back to Idaho and practice. This requirement had been instituted by other WWAMI states. The thinking of the legislature, I guess, since no one talked to me about this, was that we, the taxpayers are subsidizing the education that gets these folks going into high paying jobs, so they owe us. And doing some time in the Potato State would pay us back some of our tax dollars.
Idaho is a low doctor state. Actually, we’re the lowest. So, the legislature’s bid to require these high earning professionals to come back here and pay us back, with their work, their taxes makes good sense, doesn’t it?
The bill requires any Idaho WWAMI graduate to come back here and work within a year after completing residency or obtaining a medical license.
This would have been a problem for me ages ago. I was in a three-year family medicine residency in Washington. I had completed my first year, so I applied for a medical license in Idaho. Idaho only required one year of post graduate education (residency) to get a license. I got an Idaho license in my second year of residency and did moonlighting ER shifts in Idaho for extra money.
But I had two more years of required training in the Washington residency. Under the Idaho law, I would have to move to Idaho to start practicing before I could complete my training. Maybe the Board of Education who is supposed to supervise this would grant me the year. As it turned out, I came to Idaho and did my service.
This scheme was not well thought out. But this would just be a minor lawsuit I’m sure AG Labrador could sort through.
Let’s get to the nitty gritty.
Let’s say I’m an Idaho WWAMI graduate who has gone into maternal fetal medicine specialty training after her OB/Gyn residency. She is learning to take care of complicated pregnancies that deal with the life of the fetus, the life of the mother. Some of these care decisions are very iffy.
The baby cannot survive. Should the woman have to carry it to term? If the mother is diabetic and her health is at risk, can she consider this?
Here in Idaho, right now, the woman and the doctor cannot consider these issues. The mother’s future health to have more children, her possible complications cannot be a consideration for terminating a doomed pregnancy.
And that is just what a maternal fetal health specialist is supposed to do.
And our laws are requiring that they come back here to “practice”?
Can you appreciate that OB/Gyn doctors who have to have these patient care conversations are leaving this state? Do you know anyone who has been in this position? I do.
So, AG Labrador, do you want to bird dog this issue to its Supreme Court decision?
Prohibiting women from having this choice might be defensible if you have that sort of perspective.
But requiring a medical professional to return to our state and then telling them they cannot care for women like most civilized cultures do seems a bit over the top. But it would be a fun debate in front of some mostly favorable Supremes, eh?
I am arguing that this is a forthcoming lawsuit AG Labrador should be drooling for. Maybe he wants to stay where he is. Or not.