Are there too many doctors? / by James P. Warbasse.

  • Warbasse, James Peter, 1866-1957.
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Are there too many doctors? / by James P. Warbasse. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Jf we had a National Department of Health, if the government were doing what it might to prevent the 10,000,000 cases of unneces- sary and preventable sickness which occur annually, we should need fewer doctors; but what is the actual situation? There are constantly and seriously sick in the United States 2,- 000,000 people. That means that on an average each doctor con- stantly has fifteen sick people under his care. But let us look at the grave character of some of these cases. There are among them I,- 700.000 deaths annually. Of these deaths, 160,000 are from tubercu- losis; 70,000 are from cancer; 120,000 are from diseases of the heart; 125.000 are from pneumonia; 110,000 are from enteric infections; 90.000 are from nephritis. More than 25 per cent, of our children die before they reach five years of age. This gives some idea as to what is going on. This mortality represents but a small part of the morbidity. Ty- phoid fever alone is represented by 40,000 deaths annually but there are 400,000 cases of typhoid a year. While accidents and violence cause 90,000 deaths annually, there are 1,000,000 cases of injury which require surgical attention. Our 130,000 doctors would not be enough if every one of these patients could have the medical attention which his case deserves. But this is far short of the field of the physician. His most im- portant function should be to keep people well. As yet this function is largely neglected. Some day it will be his chief field of activity. Were the doctors servants of the State, as is the case in the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service, they would not be engaged in commercial competition for a livelihood. They would be more independent and more efficient; scientific competition instead of commercial competition would be stimulated; and the pro rata of physicians now in practice would be none too great. At present there is abundant wealth produced in this country to guarantee education and competence for every one to have the best that medical science has to offer, even to the prevention of disease, and the adequate education of the physician. The fact that this enorm- 9us wealth gravitates to the few, and leaves the producers of it in penury, has given rise to the far cry that there are too many doctors. There are fundamental economic problems involved here. Tied up with them are the reasons for poor medical education, diploma mills, incompetent doctors, the commercialization of medicine, the so- called abuses of charity, the split fee, lodge practice, contract doctors, corporation doctors, and the host of products of modern social evolu- tion—all of which are much and superficially discussed. Competitive commercialism, or the making of profits, is the casual factor which society fosters. When that four-fifths of the wealth which industry creates, and which now finds its way to the pocket of the parasite, shall remain with the worker who produced it; when the social necessities shall belong to the people, and shall be placed beyond the reach of exploita- tion ; when the democratization of society shall be attained—then this present era, in which too many doctors are said to exist, will be looked back upon as that benighted period in which man in his blindness with- held his hand from plucking the fruits of science which bloomed even then in resplendent abundance.