As the Missouri State Medical Association bids its former expert lobbyist and present Executive Vice President farewell, I find this editorial especially difficult to write on both a personal and organizational level. If MSMA had a Hall of Fame, Tom Holloway would be a shoo in for first round enshrinement. Our profession, our organization, our medical schools, our practices, and our patients are so much the better for the Herculean efforts of Tom over his 30-year tenure at MSMA. Tom makes so many things look easy you have to wonder if the man ever breaks a sweat or blows his cool. Competence and sangfroid Tom has in abundance.
I met Tom Holloway in my leadership position in the Missouri Society of Eye Physicians and Surgeons. No question in my mind that without Holloway’s heroics that Missouri’s aggressive optometrists would have legislated full medical and surgical parity with physician ophthalmologists. I’ve never heard a senator, representative, or governor of either political stripe say anything other than “You are fortunate to have such a capable and persuasive advocate for your cause.”
One expertise of Tom’s is getting all the disparate prancing legislative horses pulling in the same direction before and during the law-making circus. Thus ring-master Holloway is extremely proficient at working with medical and surgical state organizations to co- ordinate legislative efforts, provide guidance and insight, work with other lobbyists to fight the good fight on many issues but perennially and ineffably scope-of-practice. Tom knows everyone and everything that happens in Jefferson City. I have suggested he write a “tell-all” book but he feels ‘What happens in Jefferson City stays in Jefferson City.” Ever the professional!
Seven years ago stepping out of the musty halls of the capitol and into the executive directorship of MSMA, Tom has fashioned during his tenure one of the most effective, least expensive, and best managed state associations in the entire country. His tenure has been all the more difficult given perturbatious national trends such as the dramatic decline of physicians in private practice and into employment by hospitals; the decreased participation in organized medicine by newly minted physicians and the ever-escalating pressure to inappropriately expand scope of practice as a solution to physician shortages. Tom has directed MSMA’s many rousing successes with inimitable aplomb. Often, notably twice with tort reform, Tom has assembled an ineluctable consortium of organizations to pass key legislation or slay pernicious bills.
So reluctantly, forever in his debt, we exclaim gratitude to Tom Holloway for all he has done for MSMA. We wish him and his wife Leslie every personal and professional success, good health, and much happiness. On behalf of Missouri Medicine, the editors and editorial board, we thank Tom for his constant and engaged stewardship of our Journal.
Lastly and personally - drawing from the deep and thoroughly fermented well of Irish wisdom: may the hinges of our friendship never grow rusty. Sláinte! Salute! Shalom! Bon voyage! Bottoms up! Happy trails!
Tom Holloway- an Enigma
by Jerry Kennett, MD
MSMA member since 1980
One of Webster’s definitions of enigma is, “inscrutable or mysterious.” To me this defines Tom Holloway. As Chairman of the MSMA legislative affairs committee for fifteen years I worked with Tom while he was our lobbyist and also Executive Vice President. I do not think many people know some of his talents. How many know he spends many of his vacations on archaeological excavations? Tom is reserved and does not like the limelight but excelled as our lobbyist, I think primarily because of his high integrity and extreme honesty. Legislators could always rely on what he told them. Tom also has a tremendous vocabulary and literary talent. For years I kept pestering Tom that he should write a regular column for a newspaper or journal or now of course a blog. Tom provided great leadership for our MSMA, we will miss him, and Tom I am still waiting to read your columns.
Guiding MSMA with a Steady Hand
by David O. Barbe, MD
American Medical Association President MSMA member since 1985
Although strong physician leadership is important to MSMA, a strong, effective executive vice-president with a cool head and steady hand who can guide MSMA year in and year out is critical to MSMA’s success. Tom Holloway has provided our MSMA with that strong and steady guidance, first as a ultra-competent lobbyist and more recently at the highest level of organization leadership. Tom’s experience in long service to MSMA, his expertise in association management and advocacy, and his understanding of the needs of Missouri physicians and patients and how MSMA can meet those needs have made him an extraordinary EVP. As importantly, Tom has been a mentor for me as well as dozens of MSMA officers, Councilors and other students, resident physicians and practicing physicians over the years. MSMA and Missouri medicine is much better because of Tom’s leadership. Thank you!
Fare well, MSMA
by Tom Holloway
Below is Tom’s farewell address to the MSMA Council in October 2017.
If fate smiles on you, and your feet land at MSMA, and if good fortune lets them linger, many great things will befall you.
You will have the privilege to carry this organization’s majestic banner onto political battlefields in the great marbled hallways of governance.
You will argue and fight, bargain and cajole; you will run roughshod, and be run over roughshod –all for the glorious cause.
You will be yelled at by a governor, and threatened angrily by another; but you also will stand at governors’ sides as they sign into law some words you wrote and fought tooth and nail to win.
You will tangle with the IRS, and battle the Department of Labor; you will fight against and partner with government regulators of every conceivable sort.
You will sign affidavits and be served a federal subpoena; you will testify in civil court, and you will testify in criminal court.
You will be applauded when you don’t deserve it, and you will dodge criticism when you do.
If fate smiles on you and your feet land at MSMA, you will get to be part of the most marvelous surrounding of teammates. Family, really – remarkably talented and dedicated, if occasionally eccentric and exasperating.
You will celebrate their birthdays, and revel at their weddings.
You will see their children born, and you will see those children’s children born.
You will take them to the emergency room, you will visit them in their convalescence. You will drive them to work in the morning, and take them to their treatment in the evening.
You will share bread and drink; you will share joy and heartache.
You will pray against their illness, and you will bear the unbearable weight of a casket.
Above all else, you will have the singular honor to work for and with the very brightest and the best of mankind’s most noble calling. A chance to soar with the eagles (even though you’ve never seen a weasel get sucked into a jet engine).
If fate smiles on you and your feet land at MSMA, you will not get rich. But you will be forever and immeasurably enriched.
And from the very core of me, I thank you for that – for letting me be a part of this extraordinary family for thirty extraordinary years.
I am an incompetent wordsmith to adequately bid you a fair farewell, so let me borrow a few words from Bob Dylan, who said:
“May God bless and keep you always,
May your wishes all come true,
May you always do for others
And let others do for you.
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung,
May you stay forever young.”
Thank you so very much.
Biography
John C. Hagan, III, MD, FACS, FAAO, MSMA member since 1975, is a Kansas City, Missouri, ophthalmologist and Missouri Medicine Editor since 2000. He is a multi-year Super Diamond Contributor to MMPAC.
Contact: jhagan@bizkc.rr.com
