This month on March 30, as we do each year, we recognize Doctors’ Day. Most years I never think about it and usually am reminded of it when receiving a random card or someone mentions, “Happy Doctors’ Day!” It slips by uneventfully for the most part. I’ve always felt somewhat uncomfortable and uneasy about celebrating a day like that. I’m not sure why that is the case. It may be that doctors have their work so ingrained within them that we don’t think twice about having a day to celebrate what we get up each morning to do. Caring for patients and working as part of a team that may include students, residents, nurses, pharmacists, and many more in our health care world is what we do. Do we need to have a day to celebrate it?
Doctors’ Day had its beginnings on March 30, 1933, in Winder, Georgia. Eudora Brown Almond, the wife of Dr. Charles B. Almond, thought it was a good idea to honor her husband and other doctors.1 The date marked the anniversary of the first administration of anesthesia by Dr. Crawford W. Long. The US House of Representatives adopted a resolution commemorating the day on March 30, 1958. On February 21, 1991, President George W. Bush wrote the following: “Now, Therefore, I, George Bush, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim March 30, 1991, as National Doctors Day. I encourage all Americans to observe this day with appropriate programs and activities.”2 The day is also memorialized by wearing a red carnation which stands for sacrifice, charity, courage, bravery, and love.3
I recently scoured over five different calendars to see what is recorded in small print on March 30. I looked at calendars for the USO, the US Olympic and Paralympic Foundation, the National Wildlife Federation, Disabled American Veterans, Mercy Ships, and Amnesty International. Not one of these calendars listed anything on March 30. On the 31st, however, the Amnesty International calendar did list it as “Trans Day of Visibility.” I’m totally okay with leaving out Doctors’ Day on the calendar, although I might have expected Amnesty International to list it, especially with all the strife and ill will throughout the world.
This year, however, Doctors’ Day will be different than other years. Yes, the pandemic has certainly occupied all of us practicing medicine in any way, shape, or form. Yet, in large part what is different this year relates to the happenings in Ukraine. Innocent men, women, and children are being forced from their homes to seek refuge in other parts of the country or in a completely different one. With the mantra, “run or die” in their heads, they leave all their belongings and carry with them the clothes on their back and perhaps some belongings in a backpack or suitcase. They run for their lives and hope for the best. We see images of people tired, hungry, sick, and destitute. We see orphaned children traveling alone. We learn of a dead 18-month-year old child while cameras focus on the forlorn parents and a doctor that tried against all odds to save the child but failed. Images unfold of older patients crossing dangerous and rickety bridges that have been sabotaged by their fellow citizens to thwart the invaders. We see hospitals being emptied to avoid destruction. We see interviewed doctors not willing to give their names or hospital names for fear of reprisal. People of all ages lost in so many ways.
We see the images and want to help. We may donate money, gather supplies, and cry along with those on our televisions. How lucky we are to have the things we think make us happy and whole. In spite of rising prices on all fronts, we at least have our homes, friends and families, food to eat, and health care systems to care for us. We bellyache about prior authorizations, Medicare and other cuts, the hassle of the EMR and so much more. However, at the end of the day, we have a place to go.
Can we do more than just write a check or put together a care package and then go on with our lives? That is for each of us to decide. We think the unthinkable will not reach our shores…this will never happen to us. We’re comfortable and warm that all this is happening in a world thousands of miles from us. We are isolated and safe. But are we really? We can only hope, as the world gets smaller and smaller and as power corrupts those in charge…we can only hope.
So on this Doctors’ Day, let’s think of recognizing the doctors in war-torn countries doing what they can to help save those they know and love. Don’t forget their patients and those wandering, trying to find peace and safety. These doctors and their patients and so many others are fighting against horrific odds. We can only hope they will survive and remain steadfast in their search for a better life. We hope and pray for those doctors who are working hard under unthinkable circumstances. Let’s not forget any of them.
Happy Doctors’ Day!
March 30, 2022
Matthew J. Burday, DO
President
