A healthcare history lesson

Since I am a 50 year old woman, there are days, weeks even at times, when I simply cannot think. Today is one of them. So instead of trying to think, I am simply going to report.
When I was going through boxes I inherited from my Grandmother, I found a Saturday Evening Post magazine from June 15, 1963 with a cover story: Exclusive-A penetrating study of The American Doctor, Troubled by his wealth and his changing image.
The article was written by Evan Hill, a World War II Veteran who spent four years in a military rehabilitation hospital and wrote about those experiences in a May 1960 article called My Memorial Day. Mr. Hill's article about his war experiences show him to be someone who experienced healing in a very intimate way. He watched and knew about patients and doctors. So I have selected quotes from his cover story on the modern doctor of 1963. The remainder of this is direct quotes, no commentary. As I said at first I cannot think today.

The American Doctor: Death of a Legend in an era of Miracles, by Evan Hill

"Old Doc could do almost nothing for pneumonia and many other diseases except relieve pain, stress and distress. . . Today Young Doc uses a magic needle instead of a magic personality. . . there is often little more than swift, lifesaving science and almost equally swift medical and pharmacy bills."

"The result of specialization is impersonalness, but the fact that it's impersonal does not mean that it's poor medicine. . . Both doctor and patient have difficulty adjusting to what Doctor Gipstein calls the 'general dehumanizing of everything throughout society.'"

"Yet. . .the AMA and the great complex of city, county and state medical societies which is identified as organized medicine has served the nation very well. Perhaps 80 percent of it's efforts and money have been devoted to science and the education of public and physician alike in medical matters. But this work goes on quietly, with scientific caution, for the medical profession - not unlike other highly trained professions - seems to have an innate distrust of both the patient's and the public's judgment."

"Today, with such a small number of uncollected bills, there is little justification for the old time Robin Hood philosophy of soaking the rich to take care of the poor. Yet there are still physicians who adhere to this practice. This is where the grievance committee comes in."

"In all fairness it must be pointed out that the doctors receive only a fraction of what the public spends for its health. Physicians fees were 27.6 percent off the health-care dollar in 1961, and they have risen less than have all services listed in the Consumer Price index."

"The desire for independence is perhaps the most significant facet in the profile of the doctor."

"The physician, like the Amish, is so used to doing things in one economic way for years that he is simply resisting change. He feels, as a minority, that he is fighting for his rights. In fact, much of his resistance to an intermediary- whether government, unions or insurance companies-is simply because he doesn't want to feel he's working for someone other than himself."

"This brings us to that much discussed doctor-patient relationship, the sanctity of which organized medicine sees threatened by Medicare, group practice, hospital insurance and any other alterations in the pattern of medical practice which it opposes. Organized medicine warns that the relationship will suffer greatly, or entirely disappear, if American medicine ever is 'socialized' Yet , closer examination of the problem shows that the forces of society and science are stripping the doctor of his warmth, often preventing the patient from receiving it when offered. Neither the patient nor the doctor has time to get acquainted."

"Times have changed: science has changed the patient has changed, and so has the doctor."

"The doctor's innate independence is not helping form a fonder image, and he is unlikely to change. The patient will not become less educated, less demanding, or less critical. I addition, Americans, despite the cries of organized medicine, are beginning to feel that medical care is a 'right' and not much different from such established services as education, fire protection and public roads, regardless of who pays for it or how."

"It is true, as a mid-western physician says, that the profession has deteriorated in the public eye even though medical care is better than ever before."

"The public does not hate the profession- Generally it has great respect for it, and it has reason for such respect. But it has little love-at least not the love it had for Old Doc-because neither the New Doc nor the new patient has much time for love. And with the immense growth of specialization coupled to the phenomena of the vanishing family doctor, the patient finds it somewhat unrewarding to love a scientific instrument."

"The fact is that the problems of the American doctor are born, not of despair, but of progress."