The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1921-08-05
The Surgeon and His Hire.

Johns Hopkins Hospital may ex-
pect one speedy result from it's new
ruling-that it's doors will be be-
sieged by all the ultra rich in need OF
an operation. Truth to say, sur
geons' charges in the upper range
have long been highly questionable.
They have been scaled, not primarily
to the Importance of the operation
or the skill of the operator, but to
tie means of the patient. One sur
gerry of national renown employs
agent: to make thorough inyestiga-
ticn as to the patients annual in
como and then writes out a bill for a
twelfth of it not infrequontly a
matter of very many thousands of
dollars. Some local practitioners are
almost as steep in their charges.
When it happens, as it sometimes
will, that the patient dies, the bill
presents a perplexing problem to his
executors-which is often carried to
the courts. Dean Williams was not
without justification when he said
that the love of money was the great
est danger confronting the medical
profession and had already seriously
lowered it's standing before the pub
lie.
All this, however, presents only
one side of the picture-perhaps the
less important side. AS a rule, those
surgeons who exact the highest fees
from the rich have made a lifelong
practice of giving one-half to two
thirds of their time to the poor
without any compensation beyond
an increase of experience and repu-
tation, together with the satisfaction
of rendering a truly noble public
service. The surgical institute that
charges those who can afford it
a months income treats multitudes
of the needy gratuitously an1 with
precisely the same care. Thus the
curgical profession constitutes sort
of benevolent feudalism. Like Robin
Hood, it relieves the rich OF super
fiuous pelf and distributes it among
tie poor. The profiteer against whom
Dean Williams RACES is oil too real
a portont; but he is more prominent
in the public prints than in actual
experience. BY and large, surgeons
and physicians clso-are perhaps
the most benevolent and public spir-
tied of professional men. The ruling
of the Johns Hopkins Hospital strikes
at real abuse; but IL it is generally |
adopted, as is now impossible, it
seems likely to lower the standard of |
public beneficence in the profession |
as whole. The surgeon is entitled |
to his livelihood, and if one source is
Cried up he ia more than likely to tap
another.
The very poor willprobably not suf
fer; for the honor of society their
needs must be met. The difference
will appear in the case of the mod
srately well to co. Hitherto very few
Of these have BEEN called upon to pay
The Johns Hopkins maximum of
81, 900 for a major operation and $35
| week for subsequent attendance.
Many have paid only from one to
,hree or four hui,ired dollars for the
operation AMI nominal fec FOR at
endance. If surgeons are very gen-
orally cut off from the larger fees,
he result will inevitably be an in
crease in their ordinary charges. The
suppose at JOINS Hopkins was doubt
ess to safeguard tho reputation of
he surgical profession; but the logi-
al result of the new rule is once
more to benefit the rich at the ex-
,ense of the moderately we'll to do.
-Yew York Times.
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