SUNY Downstate Medical Center - Iatros Yearbook (Brooklyn, NY)

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There is not a socioh politicaL or religious privilege that you enjoy today that was not bought for you by the blood and tears and patient suffering of the minority. John Bartholomew Gough Wluit is a Minority? In America, at least, the female medical student definitely represents a minority. But why female and not woman? Aside from the semantic hairsplitting, there is a somewhat deeper meaning to the above question. Truly, not all females are women (as not all males are men); but in recent years, the majority of those females in medicine are feminine, attractive, womanly. She no longer wears the dowdy business suit, the hair neatly gathered at the base of the neck, the orthopedic oxfords. She had a somewhat delayed entry into the world of modern fashion, but she wears the proverbial miniskirt with the best. One might assume that the hemline elevation was tolerated, if not appreciated. She will also marry in medical school (possibh ' at a rate of 50 or more) often to a fellow student. I believe women find medical school and medical training to be a less traumatic experience than that tolerated by their predecessors. We are accepted, and I would venture, acceptable to the men. Perhaps the situation grows out of the greater confidence we have in our own feminity, perhaps it is merely a re- turn to the natural situation of civil male-female interaction in a professional setting. One wonders why die natural state disintegrated to its depths of absurdit) ' in the past. We grant that certain special- ties impose limits on our choice of career. We are advised to choose those areas with regular hours, and many women do so readily. There are those who still feel the pressure of proving themselves professionally, and perhaps their flamboyant choices of specialties constitute a rather self-defeat- ing arrangement. But it is recognized that women are certainly adequate physicians; some are even exceptional. My own academic experience has been compara- ble to that of my husband, a classmate, except perhaps in surgery, where I was referred to as one of the fellas, and was clamped and sprayed and shoved at the operating table, though no more clumsy than any other fella. Perhaps these are only isolated incid ents, indigenous to the psychic pathology of a few Kings County surgeons and sur- geons in training. The changing face of . merican medicine may see the demise of the female question. With new areas of Adolescent Medicine, of Family Planning, of ex- panded ambulatory facilities reaching into com- munities dealing with patients one to one, the old prejudices may fade. I feel diat patients are die last to reject the woman doctor; and certainly, in medical care, the patients ' concerns must be primary-. Phvllis Selter Rochelle Hainiowitz Gordon Diane Schuller Bette Harig

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1 Ricardo Wilson President Nixon and the American Medical As- sociation have only recently acknowledged the ex- istence of a national health crisis. This crisis just did not nappen. A major force in its development has been a professional elite who have seen to it that the number of medical schools in this country remain constant and that these schools maintained a small enrollment. As a result there has been no substantial increase in the number of physicians trained yearly in this country in more than 50 years whereas tlie population has more than doubled in that time. Furthermore, the educational system of this na- tion was and still is set up in such a way that the quality of education one gets is directly propor- tional to one ' s annual family income. Thus the bulk of the well educated segment of our population comes from the upper and middle classes. Academic excellence has always been the major factor in choosing persons to enter the medical profession. As a result, physicians have continually come from the most highly educated segment of our population; namely, the upper and middle classes. Figures from surveys indicate that .342 of the medical students come from America ' s upper class, i.e., the top 32 of the population, . nother 55? come from the middle class. This group of students will as they have in the past bring with them to the profession the materialistic values of their class. When these values are applied to medicine we see the development of the belief held by the majority of our colleagues that health care is a privilege rather than a right. That health care is a service and like any other service should be placed on the money market, there to be subjected to the laws of supply and demand. The problem is that health care is not like other services. For one thing it has a fixed demand, so that when prices are increased consumers cannot offset such an increase bv purchasing less of the service. This has permitted those members of our profession whose major obje c- tive in life is to become as affluent as possible to inflate the cost of health care to such an extent that often it can be afforded by only the very rich. Such persons have no qualms about selling their acquired knowledge and skills to the highest bidder. As a result the very rich are not affected by this recently declared health crisis. The middle class is just beginning to feel this crisis. However, the poor have always been in a health crisis. The sad fact is that for years in this S(x;iet ' there have been two forms of health care delivery systems. One for the poor and one for everybody else who could pay.