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COM Outlook . Summer 2012
1968. “What that meant was the amount we
billed to Blue Cross was then paid directly to
the patients, which made it very difficult for us
to collect that money.”
Dr. Melnick, who remains a fervent
defender of the osteopathic profession at the
feisty young age of 92, recalled an oh-so-
typical incident that occurred while he was
serving as president of the Pennsylvania
Osteopathic Medical Association (POMA)
in the 1950s. “A great source of income for
both osteopathic and allopathic organiza-
tions was the sale of exhibit space at medical
meetings,” said Dr. Melnick, who received the
American Osteopathic Association’s Distin-
guished Service Certificate in 2002. “The
detail man from a major pharmaceutical com-
pany that had turned us down for an exhibit
came to my office to ‘detail’ me; I refused to
see him and told him why.
“Not long after that, the same gentle-
man made a special appointment to see me
with a higher-up in his company,” he added.
“The senior representative made a nice
presentation, explaining about limited funds,
the need to place the company’s money in
the most strategic spots, small attendance
at osteopathic meetings, and so forth. My
counter argument was simple: I told him
I understood but felt that some support
should be shown to the many D.O.s who did
write for the company’s products, and that
we felt that the company was not support-
ive. After 10 or 15 minutes of quiet, non-
confrontational discussion, the ‘boss’ pulled
out his big gun by saying, ‘Our company has
an increase in business income of nearly
10 percent every year. Osteopathic physi-
cians account for barely 5 percent of our
business. So, if every D.O. stopped writing
prescriptions for our products, the company
would never notice it.’”
Although he was understandably upset
at the brash and insulting statement he
had just heard, Dr. Melnick remained calm.
Rather than getting embroiled in a vociferous
argument, he chose a much wiser course of
action by standing up and saying, “Okay, if
that’s the way you feel and the way you want
to operate, thank you for coming to see me.”
Threatening a boycott of the company’s
products was an illegal practice, so Dr. Melnick
adopted a different approach that would soon
reap unexpected dividends. “I immediately
circulated to all D.O.s in Pennsylvania a list of
those companies that supported the osteo-
pathic profession by exhibiting and had signed
up for our upcoming convention,” he ex-
plained. “I also suggested subtly that all D.O.s
do what they could to convince the recalcitrant
companies to come aboard, but I wasn’t really
sure whether it would do any good.
“Several weeks later, the executive called
for another appointment,” he added. “His
hostile opening gambit was to say, ‘What’s
all this nonsense that’s going on?’ I pleaded
ignorance of what he was talking about. He
railed that no Pennsylvania D.O. would allow
his representative to enter an osteopathic
office. I simply shrugged my shoulders, to
which he said angrily, ‘Okay, we’ll take a
booth.’ And that company has been with
POMA ever since. This was one of many
machinations we had to go through to get
support from a number of suppliers—and
almost all of that discrimination among drug
companies is gone today.”
Keys to Winning the Bias Battle
Over the past several decades, the
osteopathic medical profession has made
great strides in overcoming the pervasive
prejudice that used to exist. So what were
the major contributing factors that helped
create this shift in attitude? According to
Dr. Neer, who served as president of the
Broward County Medical Association, the
Florida Osteopathic Medical Association, the
American Osteopathic Association, and the
American Osteopathic Foundation during
his illustrious career, the answer is quite
elementary. “I believe the major contribut-
ing factors were the ingenuity, hard work,
and willingness to never give up,” he stated.
“Along the way, we were very fortunate to
find prominent people who were laymen that
Circa 1950: Dr.
Melnick with a
decidedly dejected
pediatric patient.