Medicine: Doctors at War

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More than 10,000 U.S. doctors-left their practices in the hands of partners or friends last week and went to San Francisco. There the American Medical Association was holding its 99th annual convention. Notable absentee: Dr. Morris Fishbein, who was eased out of his job as the A.M.A.'s spokesman last December. As one veteran remarked of this Fishbein-less gathering: "It's running smoothly, effectively and efficiently—but good heavens, it's dull."

The A.M.A.'s principal concern was socialized medicine. Instead of letting its incoming president, Louisville's Dr. Elmer Lee Henderson (elected at last year's convention), deliver his inaugural address to a few hundred delegates, the A.M.A. spent $16,500 to broadcast his speech over two national networks. Said Dr. Henderson: "Our affairs are no longer just medical affairs. They have become of compelling concern to all the people."

The Real Objective. Wisely suspecting that the U.S. people are more concerned with their own health and well-being than with technicalities of medical practice, Dr. Henderson broadened the front of A.M.A.'s war against the Truman-Ewing plan for national health insurance (TIME, Feb. 20). He lashed out against "little men whose lust for power is far out of proportion to their intellectual capacity . . . or their political honesty ... It is not just 'socialized medicine' which they seek . . . Their real objective is to strip the American people of self-determination and self-government, and make this a socialist state in the pathetic pattern of the socially and economically bankrupt nations of Europe, which we, the American people, are seeking to rescue from poverty and oppression."

The A.M.A.'s high command rehired the high-powered publicity firm of Whitaker & Baxter, which last year led the A.M.A.'s foray into national politics. It also steamrollered into silence a scattering of delegates who favored the A.M.A.'s end (defeating federal health insurance), but not its ballyhooing means.

The Doubtful Future. San Francisco's Dr. John Wesley Cline, 52, the A.M.A.'s new president-elect, who will take office next June, was already in the thick of the fight. Said he: "The future of medicine in this country might well hinge upon the outcome of the congressional elections in November [when the A.M.A. will be spending $1,100,000 in press and radio advertising to combat Government health plans and boost private plans]. This is in no sense a partisan appeal. There are splendid incumbents and candidates in both parties, and there are socializers and apologists for statism in both parties." Surgeon Cline is a Republican.

Hedging its political bets, the A.M.A.'s high command chose as vice president General Practitioner Rufus Benjamin Robins. A Democratic National Committeeman from Arkansas, Dr. Robins also opposes the Truman-Ewing health plan.