REVIEW OF PRIVATE PRACTICE: PEDIATRICIANS AND GENERAL PRACTITIONERS

Abstract

THE preceding paper has described a composite picture of the total volume of medical service for children in eight selected states. This summary has induded medical care and health supervision given to children in hospitals, clinics, health conferences and by physicians in private practice. We may now examine in more detail one part of this total picture: private practice of pediatricians and general practitioners. It should be kept clearly in mind that we are dealing only with physicians in private practice. Medical care rendered to children by those who are engaged in full-time academic positions is, for the most part, inseparable from hospital services; and, therefore, has not been included as a part of private practice. Excluded, also, are those physicians in administrative and research activities and those employed by federal, state and local health agencies. For the purposes of this Study we have defined a pediatrician as a physician who says that he limits his practice to children. According to this definition, the Study listed 3,487 pediatricians in private practice in the United States; nearly one-half of these are members of the Academy, Table I. As of January 1947 the membership of the Academy within the United States was 1,909. Eighty per cent of this membership was engaged in private practice. An item which may be of considerable interest to the American Board of Pediatrics is the fact that of all pediatricians practicing in the country 51% are certified. The distribution of pediatricians, indicated on a map of the United States (Fig. 1), shows a heavy concentration in the northeastern part of the United States. New York,[See Fig. 1 in Source Pdf] New Jersey and Pennsylvania combined account for 1,152, or approximately one-third of the pediatricians of the country. The concentration of pediatricians in urban centers is emphasized further by the fact that 75% of those in private practice are located in cities of 50,000 or more population.