Family Doctor

The U.S. general practitioner feels, with some justice, that he is put-upon. Compared to the specialist, he is overworked, underpaid and underrated. Last week in Cleveland the American Medical Association tried to make the general practitioner more contented with his lot.

For the first time, A.M.A. gave a gold medal and a certificate "for exceptional service by a general practitioner." The winner of the honor was big (6 ft., 245 lbs.) Dr. Archer Chester Sudan (rhymes with Sioux Dan), 55, whose hamlike hands have been caring for patients in Colorado mountain villages for more than 20 years.

Back in 1926, on leave from his research and teaching job at the University of Chicago, Dr. Sudan went on a fishing trip to the village of Kremmling (pop. 567). Hearing that a doctor was in town, a villager asked him to visit four children with tonsilitis. Dr. Sudan stayed there until a little more than a year ago, as the only doctor to 4,000 people in an 80-mile radius. Then, ailing himself, he moved to Denver.

Dr. Sudan, whose sandy hair is thinning now, tells about the February day he drove through the snow until even his Model-T stuck, then walked ten miles to a rancher dying of pneumonia. On the way he lost his fountain pen. The next spring a road crew brought him the pen and explained: "This must be yours, Doc. Nobody else would have been up in that Williams Fork country in the winter."

Last year, as president of the Colorado State Medical Society, Dr. Sudan was a troublesome thorn in A.M.A.'s conservative side. He hired a public-relations firm which had been fired by A.M.A. for making "radical" suggestions. Dr. Sudan adopted many of the suggestions for his official state program: e.g., posting "fair" fees in doctors' offices and pushing prepayment plans. Such steps, Dr. Sudan believes, would improve relations between the general practitioner and his patients. A.M.A. has not yet changed its stand; but now (perhaps on the principle of "If you can't lick 'em, join 'em"), A.M.A. officials might be less nervous about rebellion in Colorado.

But A.M.A. is aware that it will take more than medals to solve the family doctor's problems. In Cleveland last week, a few family doctors spoke their minds. Said a Grand Rapids, Mich, doctor: "At present, the general practitioner can't even remove tonsils in a hospital. He has become a glorified orderly." Said a Salt Lake County, Utah, doctor: "The general practice man is tired of being a reference bureau for the specialist."

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