Too many doctors?
1985 1985-11Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 17 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 17
16 SOCIALIST ACTION NOVEMBER 1985 By KIM B. MALLET Because I have no Kaiser card and no family doctor, I go to the Berkeley Free Clinic for general health care. I spend a lot of time making sure that I have flossed my teeth, or done enough exercise, or inserted a diaphragm, so that if I do become sick, it won't be because of something I've neglected.
But I suppose the day will come when I will be flat on my back with no way to pay for getting better. These days, since I have very little money, it is a prominent concern of mine.
It amazes me that while my money is tight, and while the wages of many American workers are meager, nurses, medical aids, and doctors in Nicaragua are in danger every day of being killed by the contras. I'm amazed, because "Reagan's cubs" as they call themselves, get money to continue their war from the U.S. government.
Why is there always so little money to protect people's health and yet so much money to kill people? This money should be used for more worthy causes, like setting up grants and scholarships to enable Blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans to attend medical school.
Once upon a time, I had a little dream of becoming an obstetrician/ gynocologist. But it was a fallen dream. I had all the cards stacked against me: At the time, about 10 years ago, only 17 percent of the medical students were women, and only 8 percent were Black. And prospective students from lowincome families were shut out.
I doubt things are much better today.
I asked myself why this was so. Then I learned that in 1907, the American Medical Association (AMA) asked the Carnegie Foundation to survey all medical schools. The man who did the research was Abraham Flexner, the brother of Simon Flexner, head of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. The AMA felt there were too many doctors in the United States. In 1910 Flexner concluded the same thing.
The Flexner Report recommended that in order to lessen the number of doctors, medical education must be made inaccessible. Close the women's medical schools. Close five of the seven medical schools for Blacks. Make the tuition very expensive.
It all sounded too familiar.
But feeling sad about a lost dream is only part of the story. It soon hit me that I should do something about this situation. I realized that I would have to join the struggle to change the system so that medicine would no longer serve profit, but would heal the people.