Whatever Happened to General Practitioners?

Booknews

Reflecting on his 35-year career as a doctor in the US, Cantafio laments the trends that have led so many trained practitioners away from direct patient care, and have subjected all doctors to the scorn of patients who rightly see them pursuing personal gain rather than reducing suffering. He reviews the history of medicine and physicians in the country to the rise of health-maintenance organizations, and places the shift of medicine from an ethical profession to a business in the context of the Hippocratic oath. No index or bibliography. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.