Medicine: Patients Diagnose Doctors

The American Medical Association looked in the mirror of a public-opinion poll to see what the U.S. thinks of its doctors. To nobody's surprise, the A.M.A. concluded that doctors stand comfortingly high in public esteem.

Only 82% of the 3,000 people polled have a regular family physician, but of those who do, 96% think well of him. Commonest criticisms: he thinks he is always right (23%), he is hard to reach for emergency calls (19%), he keeps patients waiting longer than necessary (15%), and he is not frank enough about their illnesses (15%).

When it comes to physicians other than the regular family doctor, the U.S. public is not so charitable: 60% believe that other people's doctors do not give patients enough time, 46% that they are not frank enough, 43% that they charge too much, 39% that they have too little personal interest in patients. The A.M.A. salves itself with the soothing notion that these harsher judgments of other people's doctors are based on hearsay.

The public proved uncannily accurate in estimating the length of the average doctor's work week (64 hours) and how long he works for nothing (eight hours). The A.M.A.'s pride suffered a rude blow in one respect: only 48% of those polled had ever heard of the outfit, and only one-fifth of these could remember anything (good or bad) about it.