An Analysis of Political Contributions from Neurosurgeons in the United States

A Longitudinal, Geographical, and Descriptive Analysis of Political Contributions of Plastic Surgeons

“…This result is consistent with the findings in other specialties where higher paying specialties, including neurosurgery, radiologists, and anesthesiologists, tend to align more with the Republican party in contrast to less compensated specialties such as psychiatry [11]. Singh et al stipulated that surgeon support of Republican candidates may be in part due to medical liability reform legislature that would help support the high rates of malpractice lawsuits [9]. Republican support may be particularly demonstrated in states with pronounced tort laws such as Texas, while states that have weak tort laws, such as New York, also have fewer Republican contributions [12].…”

“…Patel et al found a majority of contributions for the radiology PAC, along with exponential growth in recent years [8]. Similarly, 41.8% of all political contributions made by neurological surgeons were also directed to the AANS PAC [9]. The impact of PACs in plastic surgery has been explored in prior studies, with Ellsworth et al noting a correlation between PAC legislative actions and corresponding case volume [14].…”

“…In particular, the plastic surgery PAC (PlastyPAC) allows plastic surgeons to form a community, and serves as the largest voice for advocacy and political change in reconstructive and cosmetic surgery [6]. Although numerous studies have previously characterized political engagement in various specialties and subspecialties [7][8][9][10], there has been no such study done for plastic and reconstructive surgeons. To achieve this, we characterized political contributions from US self-reported plastic surgeons to analyze the temporal and geographical trends of plastic surgery political engagement in USA.…”

Skin in the game: an analysis of political financial contributions from U.S. dermatologists

“…PACs donating ≥80% of their funding either to the Democratic or Republican party were classified with that party; if the 80% threshold was not met, the donation was considered Independent. For PACs with no listed party identification on the FEC website, we queried the OpenSecrets database, a program of the Center for Responsive Politics that tracks “money in U.S. politics and its effect on elections,” for historic donation breakdown and determined political affiliation using the same 80% threshold 3 …”

“…1 As central stakeholders in the shifting U.S. health policy landscape, physicians may opt to donate to political candidates with congruent views or to specialty-specific political action committees (PACs) whose mobilization of individual donations allows them to effectively advocate for their specialty. 2 Studies have examined the political engagement of various medical specialties, 3,4 but no such investigation has been performed for dermatology. Our objective was to analyze trends in political financial contributions from U.S. dermatologists over recent years.…”