Critics' Field Day

Doctors, surgeons and hospitals were under a crossfire of criticism last week, some of it from within the medical profession itself. Items:

P: Psychologist Ernest Dichter, specialist in motivational research--"MR" to Madison Avenue clients (TIME, May 13)--probed the motives of both doctor and patient, told a forum of 1,000 physicians in Washington that they should abandon the "father image" role of the old-style family doctor. Dichter advised: "Accept the fact that today's patient has grown up and can read current medical articles," and treat him more as an equal. This goes for fees, too: the doctor should quit thinking of himself as a saint, admit frankly that he has to be a businessman. "Patients resent having fees tied to how much their leg or their life means to them, and regard this as biological blackmail." P:The G.P. is getting a raw deal, complained Oklahoma's Dr. Malcom E. Phelps in his presidential address to the American Academy of General Practice in Dallas. Members agreed, passed a resolution denouncing the system whereby they are frozen out of many hospitals by boards under specialists' control and are denied the right to do routine surgery in them. Cried G.P. Phelps: "Great damage has been done and much public distrust of the entire profession has resulted from the senile mouthings of spokesmen and the selfish, shortsighted policies of at least one self-anointed national professional group. The financial ring of their concern is very hollow. They insult the intelligence of the public when they believe people do not see the big dollar sign through the sham of their propaganda." Wild Oklahoma broncos would not drag the name of the "one group" from Dr. Phelps, but no hearer doubted that he meant the American College of Surgeons, which, in its campaign for higher standards of surgery, has vastly increased the surgeon's jurisdiction as against the G.P.'s. P: Medical care in general costs too much, said Dr. Francis D. Moore, surgeon in chief of Boston's Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (TIME, May 6), to a meeting of New England hospital officials. "It is the most fantastically expensive item in our civilization," and especially in the U.S., it has luxury aspects that should be pruned. Many patients are overcharged, e.g., for special nursing that may not be necessary. Insisting that needed economies must not lower the quality of care, Dr. Moore suggested: "Doctors and hospitals can help to reduce the cost of care by making it as efficient as possible, at the same time as Blue Cross and the insurance companies raise the proportion of their payments, so as to put medicine and the hospitals back in the black."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.