IS A MEDICAL MAN A PUBLIC SERVANT?

Thames Star, Volume VI, Issue 1775, 10 September 1874, Page 3

IS A MEDICAL MAN A PUBLIC SERVANT?

At a recent inquest at Isleworth, it transpired that a young woman, who had been confined a few days before, had died before the arrival of the doctor who had been sent for. The doctor was sent for at eight, and did not arrive till a quatcr, to ten. Mr. Davies stated that he had made a post mortem examination of the body of the deceased, and found that she died from inflammation of the bowels. A juror said that a doctor ought to have attendod earlier, as "he considered a medical man a public servant." The coroner said he was wrong, as unless the surgeon had received a medical order from tho relieving officer he need not attend. The law held that a doctor was in the same position as a tradesman, the commodity he deltin being his skill, which he could' dispose of or not, as he saw fit. In the present case no order had been appliep for, and the mother of the deceased saw no danger till eight o'clock. The jury returned a verdict of" Death from natural causes." The worthy juror's view that a doctor is a public servant has only to be plainly put to stand self-refuted. Service implies reward and payment, and mutual agreement, all of which are conspicuously absent as between the great "public" and the private medical man. I The public would surely not bo mean enough to expect medical men to be its " servants" without corresponding remuneration ? We do not mean to defend any unreasonable disinclination to obey a professional . summons, or to say that a medical man does not incur a grave responsibility who delays in attending to an urgent message, or that in doing so he does not break the law of humanity, which has bearings on medical men which it has not on tradesmen ; but we claim for a medical man the right to act on his own sense of duty, and to repudiate emphatically the shabby doctrine that a medical man is a public servant —the said public not recognising that relationship in any generous or just way, but only selfishly, and when it serves its purpose. Pay or no pay, we should not have the poorest die without good help from medical men ; but we protest agaiust a false doctrine, and the u«e of it for' condemning a medical man. —Lancet.