The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1903-02-11
PUBLICITY FOR DOCTORS.

THE SALT LAKE MEDICAL society
has been threshing out again the
old matter of publicity for physicians.
A report of the proceedings at Mon
day nights meeting of the society says
that newspaper accounts of operations
and medical cases were denounced. Dr.
La Motto announced that he would
soon introduce a resolution providing
for rule requiring that such accounts
be clipped and that the doctors whose
names are mentioned be required to ex-
plain how it happened.
The Herald has the greatest respect
for DIR. La Motto. and for every other
member of the Salt Lake County Med
icaI society. They are all gentlemen Of
intelligence and of high standing, so
cially and professionally. but they are
human and, therefore, liable to err. We
believe they err when they publicly
proclaim a repugnance to newspaper
notoriety, or fame, or publicity, or
whatever term they choose to employ
If we were compelled to diagnose
their ailment we would say they are
suffering from inturgescence of the
sensorium. Plainly put, they are alto
gether too sensitive. If a surgeon per-
forms an extremely difficult and dan
gerous operation with complete sue
cess-and when we say complete sue
cess we understand it to include the
recovery of the patient-there is no
sound reason why he should not have
credit for it,
The same thing is true of the physi-
clan who pulls patient through long
siege of illness. Such events are prop
er subjects for newspaper items and
newspaper editorials. If physicians
and surgeons, cleaving to a musty ira
dition, refuse to give information to the
press, and through the press to the
public, they have only themselves to
blame if people patronize the so-caIled
qracks. Your quack is never back
ward about advertising. He gets his
name into the paper just as often as
he can. and he gets the business, too.
Now, not every doctor who advertises
is a quack, and the fact that a doctor
does not advertise doesn't indicate that
he is not a quack. Some of the worst
quacks in. the, profession -shun the adj
vertising columns. AS a rule, though,
physicians look on the man who ad-
vertises as a quack, pure and simple,
and they wonder how he is able to de-
ceive the public. 1t isn't the fault of
the public at all The real blame must
lie with the doctors who never let the
people know what they are doing g
Under the rules laid down by the Salt
Lake County Medical society Jenner
was a quack because he let the world
know of his discovery of the principle
of vaccination; Pasteur was a quack
because he gave out his germ theories;
Lorenz is a quack because he permits
the newspapers to publish accounts of
his operations; and so on down the long
list of the worlds great physicians and
surgeons.
We are sorry to disagree with DIR.
La Motto and his fellow practitioners
on this subject, but we do not believe
they take the common sense view of it.
1t is just as absurd to talk of disciplin-
ing a doctor because his name appears
in a news stem as it would be for an
association of merchants to discipline
a member who advertised The doctor
has just as much right to advertise
himself as the lawyer or as any other
professional man.