A First Brush with Professional Courtesy

Some time ago, a colleague showed me a letter from the new financial manager of a distinguished academic hospital where he had served as a housestaff officer. All alumni were warned that giving special assistance to fellow physicians or their families, sometimes called professional courtesy, could be too costly in these times of health care penury. I always thought that the injunction of the Hippocratic Oath “to consider dear to me as my parents him who taught me this art” was a good lesson in kindness to be shown to those who practiced my “art” and their families. I shared my colleague's indignation and, as I considered the matter, remembered my first brush with professional courtesy.

I became a medical student 60 years ago. Unusual circumstances occasioned more by World War II than any special talents of mine propelled me to medical school at an …