Doctors Council SEIU

Welcome To Doctors Council SEIU     The Union For Doctors The Voice For Patients         Representing Doctors and Patients Since 1973.

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Bringing Doctors Together....

 

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For Our Profession and Patients Through:

Collective Bargaining          Patient Care Advocacy            

Community Outreach          Political Action

Strategic Alliances               Organizing

Learn About Doctors Council SEIU 

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius meets with Doctors Council SEIU members

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius met with Doctors Council SEIU members in Chicago.  The Affordable Care Act was discussed, as well as the issues that doctors and our patients are facing today in our facilities.

Doctors Council members at a recent meeting with
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. 
Pictured left to right: Dr. Simon Piller, Secretary Sebelius,
Dr. Ravi Shah and Dr. Bonnie "Pete" Thomas

Medicaid Expansion in Illinois Supported by Doctors Council SEIU

Doctors Council SEIU is working at both the State and County levels to ensure the success of Medicaid expansion in Illinois, which will provide federal funds to cover millions of currently uninsured residents of the state. Through our SEIU State Council, Doctors Council has helped to support the Medicaid expansion legislation, which is now making its way through the Illinois legislature.

In Cook County, Doctors Council and SEIU Local 73 is assisting the Cook County Health and Hospital System (CCHHS) with a massive outreach program to enroll and provide quality patient care to an estimated 250,000 patients who are now eligible for Medicaid under the 1115 Waiver program. Doctors Council has played a pivotal role in the rollout of this program, including work to build the foundation for the patient-centered medical homes which will become the model of care throughout our public system, and in engaging our members in discussion about transforming our system under the Waiver.

Protecting Medicare: Doctors Council speaks out at Rally

Dr. Frank Proscia, 1st Vice President/Executive Director of Doctors Council SEIU speaking at a rally to protect Medicare for our patients and our future.

Jacobi Member Dr. Sheldon Teperman Speaks out against Gun Violence

“We must change! From our perspective as doctors on the front lines of this violence, we must raise up our voices and Demand a Plan to end gun violence, as Mayors Against Illegal Guns and grassroots supporters are calling on the President and Congress to do. States with stricter laws have fewer gun deaths, according to the Violence Policy Center. It’s clear that gun safety laws work to prevent death and injury.” 

Dr. Sheldon Teperman
Director of Trauma Surgery

NY1 -  Trauma Doctor Pleased By Obama’s Gun Violence Proposal

New York Daily News - Jacobi’s chief trauma doctor to take his expertise and plea for tougher gun laws to fellow physicians

Organizing with Doctors Council

What Our Members Have To Say

"Through Doctors Council we work with our state and medical societies.  Our union specializes in doctors' issues, and we also form strategic alliances with other professional organizations.  We work on a national, state and local level."

Dr. Patricia Simples
Stroger Hospital 

"Our Doctors Council contract has a clause that states 'The time an Employee has allotted as of July 31, 2011 pertaining to research, teaching and protected time status, including but not limited to administrative time, shall continue.'  This was important to us as doctors because as financial pressures mount it becomes harder to protect the time we need for research, teaching and administrative issues."
Dr. Jay Meisner
Jacobi Medical Center 
Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Read More.........

Honoring Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.”  This was one of the statements of Martin Luther King, Jr. and we honor his life and what he stood for.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., waves  to the nearly 500 people waiting outside Harlem Hospital in New York City on  Oct. 3, 1958.  Dr. King was stabbed on Sept. 20, 1958.  Doctors Council SEIU now represents the doctors at Harlem Hospital where Dr. King was treated.

Present and Unaccounted For: Black Women in Medicine

Doctors Council attended an event for a documentary "Present and Unaccounted For: Black Women."  This celebrated black women and their stories as doctors.  It is inspiring and tecahes us all how each of us can make change in the world.   The choices  these doctors made led them to become doctors whose lives are inspirational stories of groundbreaking accomplishments in the medical field.  

Pictured are Dr. L. Toni Lewis (left), SEIU Health Care Chair, and Dr. Camille Clare (right), Doctors Council SEIU member. 

In the middle is a picture of Dr. Muriel Petioni, Harlem's own "Mother of Medicine."   Dr. Petioni was the daughter of one of Harlem’s first black physicians and was among the first generation of black M.D.’s given staff privileges at Harlem Hospital in the 1950s.

SEIU Convention adopts Doctors Council Resolution on Single-Payer Advocacy

Resolution on Single-Payer Advocacy

Whereas: Quality Health Care is a basic human right and social good; and

Whereas: The current state of health care reform leaves millions of families in the U.S. un- or under-insured; and

Whereas: Nearly one-third of every health care dollar is consumed in administrative costs and private insurers’ profits:

Therefore Be It Resolved: That SEIU actively advocate and organize for the adoption of a single-payer healthcare system on both national and state levels, modeled on an expanded and improved “Medicare for All” system.

SEIU adopted the above resolution presented by Doctors Council SEIU members. 

Doctors Council Benefit Plan - Providing Excellent Benefits to our Members

A Doctors Council contract contains many provisions and protections. One important part of our Doctors Council contract is benefits received through the Doctors Council Benefit Plan where we have bargained this into our contracts. These benefits are provided to eligible members and dependent family members at no cost to you and are funded through contributions made to the Plan by your Employer as stated in our Doctors Council contract.  Doctors Council members have negotiated valuable benefits into their union contract through the Doctors Council Benefit Plan- additional supplemental benefits in addition to your primary health insurance at no cost to you. Learn about our Doctors Council Benefit Plan. 


"I brought an issue to the attention of the Doctors Council members who are Trustees of the Doctors Council Benefit Plan.  I wanted to expand a particular benefit.  The Doctors Council members told me they would research my issue and get back to me.  When they did get back to me it was to inform me that the Benefit Plan would expand the benefit issue I had brought up.  This showed my voice counted and how a plan run by doctors for doctors benefits us."
Dr. Stephen Mulrooney
Coney Island Hospital



"We just bargained the Doctors Council Benefit Plan into our first contract.  It saved my colleagues and me money that we did not have to spend as well as reimbursing us for expenses that we did not get money for in the past.  The Doctors Council Benefit Plan both keeps money in our pockets as well as putting money in our pockets through reimbursement of many different benefits."
Dr. Blanca Gamboa
North Central Bronx Hospital

Where the Jobs Are: Healthcare

Getting more Americans back to work without sacrificing healthcare services for those that need it the most should be our top priority as a nation. Now more than ever, Americans cannot afford devastating cuts to Medicaid and Medicare.

Winning for our Members

Doctors Council Grievance and Arbitration Victories
Enforce our Contracts and Protect our Rights

In these tough economic times, it is important to have a contract that protects our rights, pay and benefits. When our
employer is violating our contract, we attempt to work with them to resolve the issue. When that cannot be done, we use the grievance and arbitration procedure to enforce our contract.  What follows are some recent grievance and arbitration victories, in the form of arbitration awards or grievance/arbitration settlements.

Coler-Goldwater Doctors become NYUSOM

Doctors Council SEIU members working at Coler-Goldwater became employees of the New York University School of Medicine.

Doctors Council SEIU members at a membership meeting discussing  the transition to their new employer- NYUSOM.

Doctors Council SEIU meeting with the City Council about the transition; from left to right: Dr. Chaitanya Sur, Dr. Avtar Uppal, City Councilmember Jessica Lappin, Dr. Joseph Mazza and
Dr. Frank Proscia.

Doctors Council SEIU Delegates at SEIU Convention

Having Doctors Council SEIU as a national doctors union means taking part in the national discussion on issues such as healthcare and speaking out and advocating for our patients through working together with other organizations. 

Doctors Council SEIU Delegates meeting with doctor representatives from other national doctor groups, Doctors for America (DFA) and the Committee of Interns and Residents (CIR) at the SEIU Convention.  Protecting access to patient care services was among the topics discussed.  Pictured from left to right are Dr. Edgardo Rivera (CIR), Dr. Alice Chen (DFA), Dr. Flavio Casoy (CIR), Dr. Matsuko Takeshige (Doctors Council SEIU), Dr. Vivek Murthy (DFA), and Dr. Kathe Kozak, Dr. Fred Martin and Dr. Frank Proscia of Doctors Council SEIU. 

From left to right: Dr. Kathe Kozak, Dr. Lewis Silverman, Dr. Fred Martin, Mary Kay Henry, SEIU International President, Dr. Frank Proscia, Dr. Matsuko Takeshige and Dr. Susan Williams.


Doctors Council SEIU Delegates met with the Governor of Colorado, and discussed ways that states, employers and union
members can work together in partnership, especially to improve the health of our patients.  Pictured left to right are Governor John Hickenlooper, and Doctors Council SEIU Delegates Drs. Frank Proscia, Matsuko Takeshige and Fred Martin.

Bargaining Underway

Doctors Council SEIU members are bargaining with our various employers.  Doctors from all the various departments and hospitals are bargaining together where we represent more than one hospital with the same employer.













Doctors Council SEIU members at various negotiating sessions, including with the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. 

HOUSE OF DELEGATES 2012 ELECTION RESULTS

Doctors interested in representing their colleagues, making significant changes in their work environment and committed to improving the health care system, recently ran for the position of Doctors Council SEIU Delegate.  What follows are the results of our 2012 House of Delegates election.  Read More....

Meet Our Doctors

Please meet some of our doctors and see what they have to say about Doctors Council SEIU on issues such as: 

  Organizing with Doctors Council SEIU
  Winning good contracts
  Protecting and advancing our compensation, benefits and
    working conditions
  Protecting the jobs and positions of doctors and fighting layoffs
  Patient Care
  Staffing and helping to recruit and retain doctors
  Health and Safety
  Lobbying for doctors and patients
  Successful grievances and arbitrations for doctors
  Great benefits with Doctors Council
  Regular communications and site visits from Doctors Council
    and much more…

Our Healthcare Stories

We pride ourselves on being The Union for Doctors, The Voice for Patients. Doctors Council SEIU represents thousands of doctors who practice medicine.

In this booklet, you will find five of our members’ stories describing why they saw the need to fix our healthcare system, and see the continued need to protect and improve upon healthcare reform law.    Along with national, state and local healthcare advocacy organizations, we seek to make the voices of frontline healthcare workers heard in the national healthcare debate, raise awareness about what’s working and what’s not in our healthcare system, and help to elect candidates who share our vision for quality, affordable healthcare for all.

Haiti Heroes

When disaster and tragedy struck the people of Haiti, Doctors Council SEIU responded within a matter of hours.  We reached out to our members for volunteers to go to Haiti to provide vitally needed medical care and our members were in Haiti within days of the disaster.  What follows is some of our members' experiences including what they did and what they learned.  What we all learned is that not only is Doctors Council SEIU a national union for doctors but when needed an international union for patient care.


Dr. Fred Martin, Doctors Council SEIU member of Chicago’s Stroger Hospital, treats a patient in Port-Au Prince, Haiti.  Dr. Martin’s medical efforts were reported in the Los Angeles Times (left) and on television on CNN (right). 

Patient Care Committee Meetings

Patient Care Committees Addressing a Number of Issues

Doctors Council SEIU strives not only to improve and protect the wages and benefits of our doctors through a good contract.  We also endeavor to address working conditions and patient care.  We believe that doctors should have more of a real voice in patient care decisions.  To that end, we have bargained into our contracts a Patient Care Committee that requires administration and management to meet with representatives from each department and to address patient care issues. Read more...

Assault On our Profession

No doctor is immune to the dramatic changes that are taking place in health care today. Doctors are being held accountable for unrealistic productivity goals that they had no voice in setting and are finding it increasingly difficult to adequately treat all patients assigned and handle their case/ workloads.
These changes in medicine have occurred without the consent, much less the consultation, of doctors. Furthermore, these changes have placed doctors in the precarious position of bearing the responsibility for patient care with little or no authority over how to exercise it, causing frustration and a sense of helplessness among dedicated health professionals.

However, there is a solution.  

The solution is DOCTORS COUNCIL SEIU.

Doctors who never considered unionization in the past, now recognize that a union offers a vital mechanism to reassert control over the practice of medicine. In addition, a union provides doctors with a unified front to fight for their rights as well as the rights of their patients. Doctors from all clinical services have their concerns represented by advocates who understand medical issues as they directly affect doctors.