March 30, National Doctor's Day, Happy Doctor's Day
Par Louis Joseph Auguste, MD NATIONAL DOCTOR’S DAY March 30, 2013 Dear Colleagues: March 30 is National Doctor’s Day. For most physicians, this will come as a surprise, since they did not even know that such a day or any day had been devoted to honor our profession. The first Doctors Day observance was March 30, 1933 in Winder, Georgia. Eudora Brown Almond, wife of Dr. Charles B. Almond, decided to set aside a day to honor physicians. This first observance included the mailing greeting cards and placing flowers on graves of deceased doctors. You may ask why March 30 was chosen. Well, it is in commemoration of the date that Crawford W. Long, M.D., of Jefferson, GA, administered the first ether anesthetic for surgery on March 30, 1842. It took an act of congress signed into law on February 21, 1991 by the elder President George Bush to nationally recognize the achievement of physicians throughout the history of mankind. In the preamble of this law, Mr. Bush quoted Dr. Elmer H