August Focus

[摘要] Here is Nye Bevan, forever credited with the creation of the NHS, opening a health centre in 1954: ‘… there were three elements that went into the making of [the health service] — namely, the patient, the doctor and society — and that these were not always on good terms with one another. Doctors sometimes gave the impression that they thought the other two were there in order to attend upon them. Patients took a slightly grudging attitude to both. Society, represented by the central government and the local authority, had the obligation of providing the apparatus the doctor wished to use for his patients. The doctor was never satisfied that the apparatus was good enough for its purpose, and the central government or local authority was often satisfied that the doctor might not be good enough for the apparatus. … A general practitioner’, Mr Bevan continued, ‘did not necessarily receive sufficient intellectual refreshment.’1 It is easy to feel that things don't change much for doctors and patients, that helping patients in the privacy of the consulting room is the same as it has been for generations. But it's hard to imagine any government minister (or ex-minister) describing the relationship in such terms 50 years on.

[学科分类] 卫生学