Pittsburgh, September 24, 2001 -- Department of Neurological Surgery sixth-year resident Dr. Alan Scarrow, MD, JD, recently returned to Pittsburgh following a one-year public policy fellowship in Washington, D.C. Dr. Scarrow was the recipient of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons Charles Plante Public Policy Fellowship for 2000-2001. The fellowship provided funding for Dr. Scarrow to spend one year of his residency studying public and health policy issues while working on Capitol Hill.

During his time in Washington, Dr. Scarrow worked for Senator Arlen Specter, senior Republican Senator from Pennsylvania. Dr. Scarrow served as a professional staff member on two U.S. Senate Committees that Sen. Specter serves on as ranking Republican member - the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee (SVAC) and the Appropriations Subcommittee for Labor, Health and Human Services and Education (LHHSE), spending six months with each Committee.

The SVAC is charged with legislative and oversight responsibility for veterans' benefits and services. An important component of the veterans' services is the Veterans' Health Administration (VHA). The VHA operates 172 medical centers, three in the Pittsburgh area, in addition to more than 600 outpatient and nursing home facilities.

While serving on this committee, Dr. Scarrow helped write federal legislation to restructure statutory pay capitation for physicians employed by VHA. It is hoped that the revision of current statutes will allow the VHA to hire neurosurgeons onto their clinical staff without being compelled to outsource the provision of neurosurgical services and improve the quality of care being provided to veterans.

He also was involved in the annual Senate budget process and confirmation hearings, provided written briefings to Sen. Specter on issues such as the link between Agent Orange exposure and type II diabetes mellitus, Gulf War syndrome, provision of health care services for veterans outside the VHA system, and responded to media reports critical of the care provided by the VHA.

Much of Dr. Scarrow's work for the LHHSE Subcommittee also centered on issues related to health care. The LHHSE Subcommittee is the Senate body that takes discretionary federal money allocated to it in the budget process and divides it amongst the three departments it has jurisdiction over Ð Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. Among of the agencies within those departments of particular concern to neurosurgery are the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Agency for Health Research and Quality, and the Center for Disease Control.

Dr. Scarrow was responsible for meeting with executive branch employees of those agencies as well as constituents interested in obtaining money from the appropriations bill, and assisting with Sen. Specter's funding priorities. In addition, Dr. Scarrow prepared Sen. Specter and his professional staff on issues that were the subject of Subcommittee hearings such as Alzheimer's disease, breast cancer, and federal funding of the NIH.

He also spent considerable time doing background research, policy development, and consensus building for federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research, an issue on which Sen. Specter has been a staunch advocate. This issue has finally ripened to the point that President Bush has now agreed to limited federal funding of research on existing human embryonic stem cell lines. Currently, the University of Pittsburgh has active interest in pursuing this type of research for treatment of Parkinson's disease and stroke now that the federal ban has been lifted.

While in Washington, Dr. Scarrow also worked with the Washington Office of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons (AANS/CNS) on its policy and advocacy issues. He worked closely with Washington Office staff members and neurosurgeons serving as members of the Washington Committee on several policy interests including Medicare reimbursement for physician services, physician supervision of nurse anesthetists, and the appeals process for physicians involved in conflicts with Medicare.

Dr. Scarrow will use the experiences from the fellowship to help his fellow residents and colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh better understand the interplay between neurosurgery, the government, and the legal system. He will be giving a series of lectures to the Department of Neurological Surgery over the next year on topics such as medical malpractice, expert witness testimony, giving a deposition, the standard of care in neurosurgery, physician unions, physician reimbursement under Medicare, and the politics of health care in Washington. Several of these topics have been the subject of academic papers written by Dr. Scarrow that will be published over the next several months.

Dr. Scarrow will continue to pursue his interests as a resident member of the Council of State Neurosurgical Societies, the socioeconomic and medical-legal branch of the AANS/CNS. He is a resident member of the CNS, a candidate member of the AANS and recently passed the Nebraska bar exam admitting him to practice in the Nebraska Supreme Court and U.S. District Courts.

Dr. Scarrow, a native of Fairbury, Nebraska, has a bachelor's degree electrical engineering from the University of Nebraska and holds degrees in medicine and law from Case Western Reserve University. He will complete his residency at the University of Pittsburgh Department of Neurological Surgery in 2003.