Community health and welfare planning; role of the local medical society and its members.

Abstract

• The role of organized medicine and its influence in determining health matters has been lessening, one reason being the diminishing intimate relationship between the patient and the general practitioner. As the pre-eminent advisory group in health matters, medical societies have not been the active participants in community affairs which they ought to be. The result has been that nonmedical persons and groups are more concerned with whether the local medical society will oppose a health suggestion than they are in getting the active support of the medical fraternity for it. The experiences of some organizations in dealing with medical societies has occasionally been such as to preclude their approaching of the societies directly. There would seem to be a need for many societies, as a first step, to affirm their willingness and readiness to cooperate fully with all groups in the consideration of community problems which are of direct, or even indirect, interest to the profession. Community agencies are not frequently as concerned about the personal opinions of the medical man as they are about the attitude of the organized medical group which he represents. An alert community, like nature, abhors a vacuum, and will find health leadership from other resources if such leadership is not proffered by its own medical society.