Physician, Treat Thyself

Most doctors go to A.M.A. conventions to see and not to be seen, but in San Francisco last week, more than a thousand M.D. conventioneers became subjects for their colleagues (total attendance: 13,218 physicians, plus twice that many family members, nurses, technicians). The M.D. guinea pigs submitted to being bled for a variety of tests, underwent blood pressure readings, electrocardiograms, stethoscoping and chest X rays. The object: to raise the standard of medical care for physicians themselves.

Theoretically, every doctor has a physician in attendance 24 hours a day, i.e., by long-standing tradition, any doctor will treat any other doctor free of charge. But Dr. Charles E. McArthur of Olympia, Wash. noted that standards of physicians' medical care (except in university hospitals and a few private clinics) are among the nation's lowest--because of neglect. One big reason for such neglect, suggested Dr. McArthur, chairman of the A.M.A.'s section on general practice, is that smalltown G.P.s have limited access to specialists. And because each one feels that he "lives in a glass house," he hesitates to call in a small-town colleague.

In tests at three previous A.M.A. conventions, no less than 18% of doctors' electrocardiograms proved to be "definitely abnormal or borderline." An equal proportion of chest fluorograms showed definite or suspected abnormalities, including tuberculosis, cancer, or something wrong with the heart or great vessels. Dr. McArthur's prescriptions for fellow doctors: 1) more regular examinations ("An Annual P.E. for Every M.D."), 2) more relaxation, and 3) better organization of the work load, e.g., set aside one morning a week to see only one type of case.

In between hundreds of scientific sessions, the A.M.A. also:

P: Installed its new president, Gunnar

Gundersen, 61, of LaCrosse, Wis., a practicing physician since 1922.

P: Gave its annual distinguished-service award to Frank Hammond Krusen, 60, professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at the Mayo Foundation (affiliated with the University of Minnesota), an expert on the crippling caused by arthritis.

P: Decided to launch a propaganda campaign against the United Mine Workers' medical and hospitalization plans, marking the complete breakdown of efforts to reconcile A.M.A.-U.M.W. differences. Root of the trouble: A.M.A. insists that doctors must run medical-care plans and patients be free to choose their own physicians, while the U.M.W. maintains that it must have the right to pick its own medicos to treat members, for whom it shelled out $60 million last year.

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