What is perhaps the nation’s foremost professional organization, the American Medical Association, was founded on this date in 1847 in Philadelphia. Two hundred fifty delegates from 28 states attended the founding meeting, which adopted the first code of medical ethics, and established the first nationwide standards for preliminary medical education and the degree of MD. At the time, there were some 50,000 medical doctors in the U.S. Today, there are nearly 700,000. Physicians and surgeons have median annual earnings of more than $175,000, quadruple the national workforce median of just over $42,000, and more than triple the median earnings of TV and radio announcers. You can find more facts about America’s people, places and economy, from the American Community Survey, at <www.census.gov>.
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I wonder what the founders would think now if they went to the Emergency Room of Maria Parham for treatment and found most of the rooms full of homeless, violent, mentally ill patients chained to the beds that have been involuntarily committed by the emergency room doctors?
Heard a story on NPR yesterday of hospitals opting to provide free services by working with a non profit to get doctor surgery times and operating rooms donated on a regular basis. Theory being it’s cheaper for the hospital to donate the surgeries ahead of time then to have the patients wait until they need emergency treatment and they never recover the cost of the ER. Can’t seem to find an article about it on their site though.
Thanks to a friend who happened to share the link, here’s the article http://www.marketplace.org/topics/world/hospitals-save-money-doing-surgery-free
I guess my “cold-heartedness” mindset is getting ready to rear it’s ugly head.
With free this and free that and free everything else, no wonder our country is in the shape that it is in. I get up and go to work everyday, knowing that I owe my family and my community the effort of being a good working and active citizen. Part of that commitment is working, putting money into the tax and social security system. People who choose not to work don’t deserve free services, in my opinion. Of course, I’m ONLY talking about people who choose to not work, not people who aren’t able to work. Disabled people deserve all the help that they need, with no exception. But able-bodied individuals who choose to be lazy need not get anything from our society. Like my opinion or not, it’s just the simple truth.