Montana labor news., 1939-07-20
BOOK REVIEWS
O OF THE TIMES
By Ralph Thompson


Here is a doctors book to make
doctors and laymen alike sit up and
take notice-"A Doctor for the Peo-
pie" by Michael A. Shadid, M. D.
No doubt it will be assailed by con-
servatives within the profession as
an excited and one-sided book, but
at that there must be hundreds of
physicians who know next to
nothing about the case at issue, and
certainly the public at large knows
even less. DR.. Shadid has every
right to be excited, for he has an
exciting story to tell. He tells it
clearly and simply.
Oklahoma Hospital
1t is a story about a hospital in
Elk City, Okla. When the author,
who was born in Syria and studied
medicine at Washington University
in St. Louis, first came to Elk City,
there were two hospitals there-two
small private hospitals owned, as he
puts it, 'by two warning doctors
with but a single thought" He him
self started a third, converting a
group of rooms in a business build
ing into a so-called sanitarium and
hanging out a single as general
surgeon.
He made money, he says-at times
something like $4,000 a year. But
he began to see that the neighbor-
hood was not getting the best deal
possible, that certain doctors were
incompetent, or INSCRIPTIONS, or
BOTH" and that even the good ones
were being forced by circumstances
more and more into the role of bust
ness men. They were obliged to
succeed; they couldn't afford to
take time off for postgraduate
study; they competed with one an
other for patients; they charged fees
as high as the traffic would bear
so high that poor people frequently
stayed away until it was too late.
Gin and Clinic
Why not, DR.. Shadid reasoned, a
cooperative hospital? Elk City had
a cooperative cotton gin doing more
business than all four of the pri-
vately owned gins combined, and in
a nearby county there was a sue
cessful cooperative coal and lumber
yard. Why couldn't families in the
locality chip in and build a hospital
along the same lines-that is, con-
tribute a certain sum apiece to form
an association providing expert care
and attendance at something like
minimum cost? Since the doctors
in the n%eighborhood would make up
the staff, there would be no loss of
revenue, and patients would have
the benefit of their collaboration.
In point of fact, DR.. Shadid or
ganized a hospital Of this kind in
1929, and by May, 1880, some 100
families had subscribed for stock in
what was chartered as the Commu-
nifty Health Association. Almost i'm
mediately, however, the project was
denounced by other doctors in the
vicinity, and shortly after ground
was broken for the new hospital
building a campaign was under way
to check the entire enterprise. It
was rumored that DR.. Shsdid him
self was merely out for the money
he could make and that his scheme
was unreasonable, unethical and not
an honorable undertaking at all.
One of his opponents first moves,
he continues, was to GUST him from
the County Medical Society by dis
banding the society and then re-
organizing without his name on the
membership list. This led, in effect,
to his being outlawed by the State
Board of Medical Examiners and the
American Medical Association, and
made it temporarily impossible for
the Community Hospital to get the
best type Of physician for its staff.
Furthermore, rival institutions of a
specifically similar nature were be-
gun by individual doctors, and those
who still operated private hospitals
reduced their fees to the Community
Health Association level.
"UnprOfessiOnal Conduct"
The fight went on for years,
reaching a climax when DR.. Shadid's
opponents sought to put a bill
through the Legislature forbidding
a corporation" to practice medicine,
and prevailed upon the State Board
of Medical Examiners to consider
revoking his license "for unprofes-
sional conduct" The bill as planned,
he says, failed dismally; and as for
his license, he got an injunction
against action on the part of the
state board. His opponents asked
the Oklahoma Supreme Court for a
writ to prohibit the injunction, but
in June, 1887, the court refused their
plea. Il let it be known" DR..
Shadid explains, that if ever l was
brought into court to defend the in
junction I was going to sue the
opposing physicians for libel. Since
that time the matter has never been
mentioned again"
And since that time Americas
first cooperative hospital has grown
and prospered. It is housed today,
its founder says, in a steel-and-con-
crete building twice enlarged since
1891. II has a staff of five phvsicians