Medical ethics : a guide to professional conduct / by Robert Saundby.

  • Saundby, Robert, 1849-1918.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical ethics : a guide to professional conduct / by Robert Saundby. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Society has no contract with its medical officers, but pays according to a published scale of fees. Any person may join the Society, but he has to find a medical practitioner willing to take him at the Society’s rate, which he is not likely to be able to do if he is well off, although under the rules it may contribute pro tanto towards the payment of the doctor’s bill. The usual objection that is put forward against this plan is that the scale of payment is too low; but that is capable of amendment. The question is which affords fairer payment for work actually performed ? A friendly critic, ignoring the growing importance of this Society, has suggested that this proposal is im¬ practicable, and that the club system, if faulty, is indispensable. It has been said that unless medical men can get a good deal from club work they will not take the trouble to do it well, and that if it is to be split up no one will care about it. In Germany, under the State system of workmen’s insurance, the workmen are free to go to any practitioner, who must see them for the fixed payment of a mark (which is equivalent to a shilling), yet it appears that those doctors who lay them¬ selves out for this work get practically the whole of it, although there is nothing to