Essay: Rx FROM THE PATIENT: Physician, Heal Thyself

FEW more intimate relationships exist, outside the family or the church, than that of the average person with his doctor. Each year, nearly one billion visits are made to the U.S.'s 225,000 practicing doctors, or about five visits for every American. Each visitor expects not only medical care but comfort, sympathy, relief, reassurance and solace. There was a day when he could be sure of getting all these: the day, not too far past, of the family physician who often knew as much about his patient as he did about an illness. Today, Americans...