From the Family Doctor to the Current Disaster of Corporate Health Maintenance

This book has tried to outline where we now stand on the issues of proper patient care. The authors have not wished simply to return to the glorious past but to identify what has happened to the old family doctor tradition and to find a way to salvage the part of that tradition that can insure that the wonderful activity of attention to patient first and foremost can be preserved. It will be a difficult task as the pressures are tremendous in the other direction. But it is possible to reverse inappropriate and possibly illegal pharmaceutical company advertising and physician payments, to find a way for government funding of education so that young doctors do not feel bound to financial gain rather than social responsibility, and to set up a structure of health care delivery that does not require fee-for service hospitals and clinics. We, as doctors, nurses, and medical educators believe it can be done. We also believe the concept of a doctor who is only interested in his or her patient's well-being has not really died but has been put on hold by false advertising, short term financial gains, and technology-temporarily, we hope. Help us help your doctor to see what fun and personal fulfillment proper attention to his or her patients can bring. You can do it. Call your doctor!