An Introduction to a Brief history of the Origin and Evolution of
The Minnesota Physician-Patient Alliance (MPPA)
MPPA’s brief History recounts its elan and its rare evolution into a physician association with community leaders—the patient writ large.
MPPA became something unique in its 23-year unusual evolution into a medical political discussion group (a “think tank”) and its final exquisite simplicity. Its power resides in its eclectic intellectual capital—all views and ideas are welcome and open for discussion.
The History recounts the variety of contributor activities to MPPA’s evolution. The group began as a quasi-policy group looking for political power. They correctly sensed the loss of being the employees of empowered patients. It evolved into to a community of medical professionals and lay community leaders motivated by a common spirit for “empowering patients and physicians to make informed health care decisions”.
There is no other organization like it. MPPA has become a convener, a heretical place battling against pomposity, social engineering panaceas, and political malpractice.
If MPPA is a discussion group, does it emulate other such organizations? The first that comes to mind is the Royal Society of London founded in 1660. There are local groups. For instance, the MN Academy of Medicine (MAM) comes to mind; its aim, since founding in 1887, is to share and discuss medical publications and ideas amongst the UMN faculty, the surrounding Twin Cities, and outstate physicians. All three, the Royal Society, the MAM, and MPPA are discussion groups that have evolved in their own unique way. The Royal society has become enormous now including UK governmental services.
The power of our local MPPA organization resides in the intellectual capital of outstanding leaders, whose group elan is a measure of individual actions in publishing, business, science, and political action not inhibited by any group think organization policies.
The are many contributors to MPPA’s evolution into a community of medical professionals and lay community leaders motivated by a common spirit for empowering patients. See under this website “History” tab, MPPA’s legacy that can lead to its future path.
In a larger sense, MPPA is a place of ideas where “ideas are the forces that generate the actions of men and women in the course of human history.” A place where, “the players…are the…brief chronicles of the time…”[i] An apt description of our MPPA Fellows and their history.
[i] Hamlet to Polonius: “The players…are the…brief chronicles of the time…”— William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Act II, ii
Robert W Geist MD
June 7, 2020