Word: doctorates
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Faced with a hefty bill from a physician, many people may turn to a young son or daughter and say: "Become a doctor. Then we won't have medical bills to worry about." That may soon be poor advice. Though physicians have long ministered to colleagues and their families free of charge, such professional courtesy, as it is euphemistically called, is now fast dying out. By the time Junior gets an M.D., the practice may in fact be as rare as the house call...
...Doctors concede that this kind of fraternal "charity" hardly seems appropriate any longer for a group with such high incomes. But a more telling criticism of professional courtesy is that it can be a barrier to good medical care. For one thing, the donor physician often feels exploited and overburdened. Says Pediatrician Lee Bass, Wolfson's partner: "There is a subtle difference in how you feel about people who get free care in your office and those who pay." Also, doctors and their families frequently have misgivings about taking up another doctor's time. The result: quick, inadequate...
...talk of abandoning professional courtesy. After Wolfson and Bass denounced the no-fee practice as a relic in an article in the New England Journal of Medicine, it received a spate of critical letters. Gastroenterologist William Haubrich of La Jolla, Calif., protested that proffering a bill to a fellow doctor smacks of commercialism and erodes the strong feelings of fraternalism in the medical community. Oklahoma City Internist Ernest Warner Jr. added: "One of the greatest honors one can receive is to be asked by a fellow physician to care for his or her family...
...Geoff lives long enough to be a doctor and I live long enough to be sick, then I want him to treat me. Bill McCurdy, Harvard track coach
...Connally-type Texan: " 'Now, Gold. Everybody here is a somebody, and I don't know why you're being so captious about who it is you are. He is the Spade, she is the Widow, I am the Governor and you're the - ' 'Doctor!' yelled Gold in time to ward off a crushing repetition of that denunciatory term...