COMING REVOLUTION

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 120, 17 November 1937, Page 13

COMING REVOLUTION

MEDICAL PROFESSION

DAY OF THE SPECIALIST

NEW YORK, November 16.

The novelist Dr. A, 'J. Cronin, in a sensational interview a few hours after landing from the liner Queen Mary, predicted a revolution in the medical profession in which the general practitioner would be wiped out throughout the world.

"I believe in the general practitioner's priest-like influence and devotion, put he will be superseded by specialists," Dr. Cronin said. "It is time he was relegated to where he belongs. He is a jack of all trades and master of none, whereas today's obstetrician, lung expert, and surgeon can have, and eventually will have, adjoining offices. Then the wage-earners, and particularly the middle-class professional people, will form groups to pay medical assurance in proportion to their earnings. I intend to fight for the grouping of specialists when I return to England." Dr. Cronin indicated that he had no regrets for attacking charlatan specialists in his best-selling novel "The Citadel." He told interviewers: "I wrote the novel in order to show a. shocking injustice to humanity in this age of mendacity, but after all a certain type of woman demands pampering, which is responsible for medical racketeers performing needless operations." He added, however, that the profession was the finest and noblest in the world. There were only 10 per cent, of charlatans. He hoped his three sons would all become doctors. Dr. Cronin is on his way to Hollywood to assist in the production of- the film version of "The Citadel." '