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Auburn Annie · 12-11-2009, 04:37 PM

Interesting - I missed this the first time around, I guess.

Bill W - when you were a boy (and Fred Flintstone and I went to grade school together so I'm no spring chicken either - doctors still made house calls!) if you sprained an ankle Mom wrapped an Ace bandage around it, and grandpa fixed up makeshift crutches for you. Office visits to a doctor were rare and cost $5-10 in a big city, less in a town (see below) so of course you could pay cash. Prescriptions rarely ran more than $2 or $3 because - frankly - there wasn't much beyond aspirin on the shelf and maybe penicillin, sulfa drugs and eyedrops for glaucoma available by way of prescription. The local pharmacist might compound something from materials at hand but for gut ache you took bismuth or coke syrup (my mother kept a bottle in the refrigerator for us as needed), tincture of iodine for cuts and scrapes, etc. You get the picture.

Surgery was put off if possible, a last resort not so much because of the complications and difficulty of the surgery itself but the high rate of postoperative infections that killed so many. There was little or nothing to offer for a bad hip beyond a cane. You can't have 21st century treatment for mid-20th century prices. See http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/bu...leonhardt.html

From The 1950s: Medicine and Health

An Office Visit
The average family doctor was a busy man in his late forties. He worked about sixty hours a week and was on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. If you were too ill to come to him, he would most likely agree to come to your home. Only one out of fourteen family doctors refused to make house calls in 1958. Otherwise, you went to the doctor's office between about 9 or 10 A.M. and 4:30 or 5 P.M. On a typical day most doctors treated an average of twenty-six patients in their offices (in addition to those in the hospital, whom the doctor visited before and after office hours). You would expect to wait between one and two hours in the office before seeing the doctor. Your doctor would be likely to work on a first-come, first-served basis, rather than by appointment.

The Patient's View
If you were an average patient in the 1950s, you visited your family doctor five times a year, and you would grudgingly admit that he earned the three dollars to four dollars he charged for an office visit (though you may have felt differently if you lived in a large city, where the cost was as high as fourteen dollars). You would have grumbled nonetheless about the impersonal quality of the care and would have felt that for as much as he charged, the doctor might have spent more time treating you. It seemed to many patients in the 1950s that their doctors showed insufficient interest in their welfare, asked too few questions, and rushed treatment in an effort to see as many patients as possible.

HOW MUCH DID DOCTORS MAKE?
In 1951 doctors' annual earnings for 1949 were reported by the Department of Commerce. The report calculated the average salary of a physician to be $11,058, but there was a wide range of earnings depending on specialty. By comparison, the median family income in 1949 was just under $3,400.

Neurological Surgeons $28,628
Pathologists 22,284
Gynecologists 19,283
Members of Partnerships 17,222
Full Specialists 15,014
Doctors Paid by Fee 11,858
Part Specialists 11,758
General Practitioners 8,835
Doctors on Salary 8,272
By 1958 the average earnings of family practitioners had risen to about $15,000, and specialist earnings had risen accordingly. The median family income had risen to $4,845.

(Median family income in 2006 was $58407 according to the 2009 Statistical Abstract.)

Table 2. Median compensation for physicians, 2005.

Specialty Less than two years in specialty/Over one year in specialty
Anesthesiology
$259,948 $321,686
Surgery: General
228,839 282,504
Obstetrics/gynecology: General
203,270 247,348
Psychiatry: General
173,922 180,000
Internal medicine: General
141,912 166,420
Pediatrics: General
132,953 161,331
Family practice (without obstetrics)
137,119 156,010
Footnotes:
(NOTE) Source: Medical Group Management Association, Physician Compensation and Production Report, 2005.

12-11-2009, 04:37 PM	#20
Auburn Annie Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Upstate New York Posts: 3,101	Re: Canada's Health Care Interesting - I missed this the first time around, I guess. Bill W - when you were a boy (and Fred Flintstone and I went to grade school together so I'm no spring chicken either - doctors still made house calls!) if you sprained an ankle Mom wrapped an Ace bandage around it, and grandpa fixed up makeshift crutches for you. Office visits to a doctor were rare and cost $5-10 in a big city, less in a town (see below) so of course you could pay cash. Prescriptions rarely ran more than $2 or $3 because - frankly - there wasn't much beyond aspirin on the shelf and maybe penicillin, sulfa drugs and eyedrops for glaucoma available by way of prescription. The local pharmacist might compound something from materials at hand but for gut ache you took bismuth or coke syrup (my mother kept a bottle in the refrigerator for us as needed), tincture of iodine for cuts and scrapes, etc. You get the picture. Surgery was put off if possible, a last resort not so much because of the complications and difficulty of the surgery itself but the high rate of postoperative infections that killed so many. There was little or nothing to offer for a bad hip beyond a cane. You can't have 21st century treatment for mid-20th century prices. See http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/bu...leonhardt.html From The 1950s: Medicine and Health An Office Visit The average family doctor was a busy man in his late forties. He worked about sixty hours a week and was on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. If you were too ill to come to him, he would most likely agree to come to your home. Only one out of fourteen family doctors refused to make house calls in 1958. Otherwise, you went to the doctor's office between about 9 or 10 A.M. and 4:30 or 5 P.M. On a typical day most doctors treated an average of twenty-six patients in their offices (in addition to those in the hospital, whom the doctor visited before and after office hours). You would expect to wait between one and two hours in the office before seeing the doctor. Your doctor would be likely to work on a first-come, first-served basis, rather than by appointment. The Patient's View If you were an average patient in the 1950s, you visited your family doctor five times a year, and you would grudgingly admit that he earned the three dollars to four dollars he charged for an office visit (though you may have felt differently if you lived in a large city, where the cost was as high as fourteen dollars). You would have grumbled nonetheless about the impersonal quality of the care and would have felt that for as much as he charged, the doctor might have spent more time treating you. It seemed to many patients in the 1950s that their doctors showed insufficient interest in their welfare, asked too few questions, and rushed treatment in an effort to see as many patients as possible. HOW MUCH DID DOCTORS MAKE? In 1951 doctors' annual earnings for 1949 were reported by the Department of Commerce. The report calculated the average salary of a physician to be $11,058, but there was a wide range of earnings depending on specialty. By comparison, the median family income in 1949 was just under $3,400. Neurological Surgeons $28,628 Pathologists 22,284 Gynecologists 19,283 Members of Partnerships 17,222 Full Specialists 15,014 Doctors Paid by Fee 11,858 Part Specialists 11,758 General Practitioners 8,835 Doctors on Salary 8,272 By 1958 the average earnings of family practitioners had risen to about $15,000, and specialist earnings had risen accordingly. The median family income had risen to $4,845. (Median family income in 2006 was $58407 according to the 2009 Statistical Abstract.) Table 2. Median compensation for physicians, 2005. Specialty Less than two years in specialty/Over one year in specialty Anesthesiology $259,948 $321,686 Surgery: General 228,839 282,504 Obstetrics/gynecology: General 203,270 247,348 Psychiatry: General 173,922 180,000 Internal medicine: General 141,912 166,420 Pediatrics: General 132,953 161,331 Family practice (without obstetrics) 137,119 156,010 Footnotes: (NOTE) Source: Medical Group Management Association, Physician Compensation and Production Report, 2005.