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There is now and then a physician and surgeon who, in the...
New Haven (Conn.) Register
There is now and then a physician and surgeon who, in the eyes of his fellows, must be reckoned terribly "unprofessional." One of the tenets of the profession is to preserve an unbroken air of deep and mysterious wisdom in the presence of the "invariably" ignorant layman, while maintaining a no less solemn front of infallibility in the presence of fellow physicians. The bluff of knowing it all has to be kept unbroken. It must be an awful strain. Is it surprising that there should now and then stray into the sacred circle of the profession a man with a human sense of the fitness of things?
Perhaps it is because he is really big enough to be independent that Dr. John B. Deaver, the distinguished surgeon, talked right out to his fellows at a medical meeting in Philadelphia recently. He told them, if he is correctly reported, that many physicians made errors, and that every young surgeon would have to fill a graveyard before he became an accomplished practitioner. As respects the public, it may be that this is the brutal attitude of "What are you going to do about it?" He was talking, however, to doctors. It is most to the point that he was talking right out, whether or not he intended to have his remarks get any considerable publicity.
For thereby are we, the public, warned. We are warned that among certain members of the profession an indifference to the ultimate welfare of the public. We are experimental stuff—just subjects. We may be mediums for the demonstration of the wonders of medical skill, or we may be food for graveyards, just as it may hap. It may make a great difference to us which we are, but it is all in a day's work to the operator. We take all the risk. If we win we pay. If we lose the estate pays. The doctor wins in any case. This is a brutal way of putting it, but however brutal it is, we need the enlightenment. That this spot-light plays on only a minor portion of the medical profession, while the major part is made up of sincere, self-sacrificing men, with the high purpose to save lives and promote health and only a secondary thought of reward, only modifies the risk we take, for we are not always skilled to discriminate until it is too late. So we may regard the frankness of Doctor Deaver as saving frankness.
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January 15, 1916 issue
View Issue-
Danger of Making Excuses
ALFRED FARLOW
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Forgiveness
SOPHIE R. WEINERT
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A Practical Beginning
AMY C. FARISS
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Friendship
JOHN STEEN
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Green Pastures and Still Waters
LAURA GERAHTY
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"Out of the mouth of babes"
ELMA E. WILLIAMS
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Rejoice Always
ALFRED H. HULSCHER
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Your correspondent is not correct in his assumption that...
Charles W. J. Tennant
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Every reader of the Observer knows people who have failed...
Robert S. Ross
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It is regrettable to notice that an evangelist has stepped...
Joseph H. Mendinhall
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It is difficult to understand how any one, even though but...
Thomas E. Boland
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Christian Science has spread rapidly during nearly half...
Frank C. Barrett
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On page 2 of her Message to The Mother Church for 1902,...
Thorwald Siegfried
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Teaching the Children
Archibald McLellan
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Conservative Radicalism
John B. Willis
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The Master's Program
Annie M. Knott
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War Relief Fund
Editor
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The Lectures
with contributions from Herbert L. Luques, Gertrude Deane Houk, Arthur Robinson, George A. Maxwell, Roland T. Patten, Judge Belden, Ex-Mayor Hocken
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A sense of deep gratitude impels me to testify to the...
Elisabeth Stephan
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Though I have experienced many cases of healing during...
Fred. W. Nixon
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I want to express my gratitude for the revelation of Truth...
Elizabeth C. Waugh
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Through troubles that seemed more than I could bear, the...
Anna L. Baroggé
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Twelve years ago, while attending for the first time a...
Isabelle C. Bixby
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It is four years since I began to study Christian Science,...
A. E. O. Garnett-Orme with contributions from Grace A. Benson
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Some years ago, while I was suffering from a nervous...
Anna W. Didlake
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Over four years ago, while visiting my parents at Galt,...
James Albert Turnbull
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Several years ago I was healed through Christian Science...
Kate F. Campbell
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From Our Exchanges
with contributions from John Hunter, William Bryant, Minot Simons, David James Burrell