The general practitioner and the hospital.

Abstract

Before delving into the present problem of the general practitioner and hospital staff privileges, I should like to say something about the history of the problem, to show why the general practitioner is so much more concerned today than he was many years ago about his relationship to the hospital. Back in the horse-and-buggy days the family doctor was regarded as the important man of medicine. He was friend and advisor, as well as doctor, to his patients, and the home was his area of practice. The specialist was an awe-inspiring gentleman in a Prince Albert coat, who was seen but rarely, and when he was called into the home for consultation it meant that mother was really in a bad way. That picture slowly changed, and gradually the public came to regard the specialist as the guaranteed competent man in his field, while the general practitioner was a fellow