San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1888-06-28
THE MEDICAL PROFESSION
LEAST PROFITABLE OF ANY FROM
A FINANCIAL STANDPOINT.
A Comfortable Living Is About All the
Average Physician Can Expect - The
Doctors Bill the Last to Be Paid
Dishonesty.

Doctors Bill the Last to Be Paid
Dishonesty.
The medical profession is, taken as a whole,
the least profitable of any in a monetary
point of view. For a person who seeks
riches, it is really the last one to enter. 1t
is true some have grown wealthy in the
legitimate practice of medicine, but such are
very rare exceptions, and not one in a thou
sand is so fortunate. Really, a comfortable
living is about all the average physician can
expect, and before he can attain that he must
meet many hardships and know much self
denial. If people would only consider the
sums which he must invest first before he
can attain his degrees" and after that be-
fore he can pay lis way" the loss of wages,
if so we may speak, for the years devoted to
study and waiting for a competency, they
would realize that comparatively few bust
ness men have so much invested in their
'stock in trade" as the doctor. They would
then be less ready to deny him a fair COM
pensation for his labors.
THE LAST BILL PAID.
Not only are the incomes of physicians, as
a rule smaller than those of men of other
professions, notably the legal and minis
terial, but even the sums which they receive
are grudgingly yielded. 1t is notorious that
the last bill to be paid is the doctors. Trades
mems claims are always preferred" If it
happens that the services of an undertaken
have been employed, he, too, is among the
first creditors to be paid. If anything is
left, and there is no prospect Of It's being
needed for any other purpose, why then the
doctors bill is considered. But it would DO
violating old customs were it to be paid in
full A complete settlement in nine cases
out of ten is only effected after he has de-
Quoted large per cent. of what is due him.
Even the most honest of patients seem to
have little or 10 conjunction about asking
him for discounts, even when they we'll know
that the physicians bill rendered is not only
Just, but reasonable. "The doctor makes
his money easily" says the average patient,
and full of that belief he adjusts his sense of
right and equity and drives sharp bargain
if he can.
1t is safe to say that but few physicians in
general practice manage to collect more than
half OF their bills 1t is certainly not pleas
ant to contemplate that large share of our
people are dishonest, and swindle their ply
siclans And yet such is actually the case.
1t is doubtful ii there is any class of men in
DuSluC 5 HlO would De content 10 receive
such treatment. Why in the name of all
that is right and proper should physicians DO
obliged to put up with it! Probably they
themselves are in measure accountable for
it. Were they moro cZ2ctinS, and. making
the practice of medicine a trade, insisted
upon the full and immediate payment for
their services when rendered, their patients
would il time learn to be honest Very few
doctors would care to take such a course if
they could. and yet it is an open question if
all concerned would not be better in the end
for it. We say that they cannot always DO
50 rigid, if they would. No physician can
act on such lines in she face of an unfortunate
whose sufieringS he can relieve, or whose lifo
he can save, even if he knows full we'll that
at the nearest grog shop will be worse than
wasted the sum he ought to have received,
and which he has richly earned. Patients
have learned the principles which direct ply
s!cians, and the promptness which sway
them, and many are not slow to ta4e mean
cdyaDtagn