MEDICAL ETIQUETTE

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 April 1925, Page 7

MEDICAL ETIQUETTE

A- WIFE SPEAKS When danger i» near, and death is .. at the door, God and the" doctor we alike adore; When the danger is past and the patient is righted, . 1God is forsaken fifid the ’ doctor blighted; ■ It was the doctor’s wife who quoted that at me; she didn’t say where she had heard it, and it would pro- ; baibly have been a. breach of medical etiquette to have confessed who had taught it to her. • ' . I brought it on myself (says a writer in the’ ‘Age’) by speaking of a recent verdict of negligence against a medical, man, my manner rather iniplying that I approved. It is a curious thing how many of us rather agree with Bernard Shaw in his estimate of doctors in general. That is, Wlieh we are well—it’s dnotlier story When we are ill. If you don’t .'believe ,'this, not how the very feeblest pf jokes against the profession will , bring down the house everytime. And, somehow, since my chat with my doctor*!*. Wife I am not so sure that' we aren’t all wrong. She was feeling rather bitter. They lived near a dangerous corner, and there had been a series of motor accidents. She showed me where the injured;'. those not bad enough to go to hospital, had bled all over the carpets. They and their friends and relatives had overflowed 1 , from the surgery to the waiting room, dining yoom, and bathroom. Stimulants for the nervous ones;' 1 plenty 'of clean linen, mud stains had to be washed off, and cut heads bandaged and stitches put in. “You see,” she exclaimed, “’doctors must go to accidents.' Oh, no, they don’t‘get paid; not even for the material used or the damage done (and she glanced ruefully at her carpets). My husband has been practising for nearly fifteen years,-and he declares he has not ever .been-even thahkecl for attending'. to people "injured in accidents.” I murmured something' about the nobleness bf the profession, and the feeling of satisfaction One must get for such good done to humanity. . “Oh yes,”" she agreed,, “that used to-sound line once, and we both had

our ideals about it in the beginning. But people’s rank ingratitude, and the • way we are kept waiting for our money, has hardened our hearts. Look at this new suit just come from the cleaners. They haven’t been able to get the stains out. Salt water and seaweed. An ‘apparently ' drowned’ case! Oh, yes, the patient recovered, after the doctor had worked hard in the blazing sun and ruined his clothes. Grateful? Not a bit of it. Probably he won’t even ask the doctor’s name* Certainly we haven’t heard from him. “The truth is the whole profession is hedged round with an absurd shibboleth of convention. Medical etiquette it is called. We must keep up appearances. I cannot answer the door or the telephone'. It’-isn’t done. And we must have’ a good house and a car, or we won’t get. any paying patients. By ‘paying’ I mean those who can pay. But, alas! how many of them don’t! It would surprise you to know how many hundreds of bad debts every doctor has. They mn into thousands if the practice isf large. “And, of course, we cannot sue for our money; Medical etiquette. It isn’t done. Of. course, it is silly, but we must conform to the system. A doctor is compelled to place all his professional services at the disposal of the general public at any hour, and to anyone,, even to those who already owe him money. We cannot advertise. Medical etiquette forbids it. The lawyer gets his advertisement in every case in which he appears. Even if he is on the losing side, it is often a recommendation that he has been briefed. It proves he is on the map. • " .< “But the only ad. we get is when

we are sued for damages for neglect or wrong treatment. The public gets all the details of the few cases of so-called ‘neglect’ of the profession, hut do you ever see accounts of the many successes which, surely you will admit medical science is responsible for? “Undoubtedly, something should be done, and it is, time the whole thing was placed on a business footing. We are living in a practical age, and it appears -to me affectation to pretend, that a medical man is so high above mundane things that everything pertaining to business methods and even the name of fees must scarcely be mentioned in his presence. "Holiday, did you say?” I had*observed that she seemed to want a holiday. “Holidays with a doctor are expensive items. He must always be on the spot. It is resented by his patients if he should not be always available. There is the personal touch about one’s doctor, so that even a day off means, perhaps the loss of someone important. They go elsewhere, and they stay. A locum is seldom a success. The old patients take it as a personal grievance that their doctor should send someone else to them. They’d sooner call in another man. And the new patients take a fancy to the locum, and they keep him afterwards. So a doctor must be prepared to lose quite a lot if he takes a holiday. And, in spite of some people’s idea of separate holidays for married folk, I’m one who doesn’t agree. “So there you have a little of the other side of this question of neglect. I’ve quite talked myself out, but there’s lots more.” I took my departure rather hurriedly, and remembered a neat, unobtrus-ive-account rendered' “for professional services.” I. had pigeon-holed without a qualm. Somehow one’s doctor was never paid as promptly as a tradesman.