RDoyle_Unit 2 Essay

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Apr 3, 2024

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Riley Doyle HOM-5306-D02 4/02/2023 Unit 2 Essay Welcome to the 150 th anniversary for one of the oldest hospitals in the great state of Texas! Today, as we celebrate the world of medicine and medical professionals, we shall journey back in time to revisit some of the historical medical moments and achievements that led us to this very moment. Traveling as far back as pre-industrial times, healthcare was viewed as a form of charity rather than a cure. Medical universities, ten year degree plans, etc. did not exist. Rather, the study of medicine was habitually learned under apprenticeship where a budding physician trained under a current physician. Furthermore, healthcare during this day and age was typically family oriented. Financially speaking, physicians were costly and not always in close proximity. Health insurance also did not exist. Hospitals were seen as infection wards, and the wealthy often chose not to receive medical attention in such places. As time went on and medical practices developed, medical schools were born for those aspiring to treat the health concerns of the people. Within these schools, there was not a lot of structure to the education system. However, post-industrial era times after the Civil War is when the medical field drastically began to change. As the textbook Delivering Health Care In America lists out, there are seven factors that led to this growth: “urbanization, science and technology, institutionalization, dependency, autonomy and organization, licensing, and educational reform” (Shi & Singh, 2017). As urbanization swept much of the United States, family oriented healthcare became less common as people lived further away from each other and the women/mothers began going to work instead of staying home. Life became easier to correspond from a distance with the 1

Riley Doyle HOM-5306-D02 4/02/2023 inventions of cars and telephones. Because more and more people could now travel to their doctor versus their doctor traveling to them, this alleviated some of the healthcare expense. With technological and societal changes, doctors were starting to see an increase in the number of patients they saw on a daily basis. Authors Shi and Singh outline in their book, titled Delivering Health Care in America , a series of science and technology breakthroughs in the medical field that we still implement in today’s world. Back in 1846, one of the most innovative medical discoveries was tested during a dental appointment. It transformed into what we now call anesthesia. Because of anesthesia, doctors are able to perform surgeries while the patient is essentially asleep and does not feel any pain. Before the birth of anesthesia, doctors’ only way to help alleviate some of the pain was to have patients drink alcohol. A year after anesthesia was discovered, the vital importance of washing hands was implemented in a Vienna hospital because Ignaz Semmelweis believed there may be a connection between the non-washing of hands and the spread of disease. Also in the 1800s, Louis Pasteur made headlines by sterilizing medical tools. Mid-1800s, a surgeon by the name of Joseph Lister developed a method by which wounds can be protected from infections before and post surgeries (Shi & Singh, 2017). X-rays became popular towards the end of the 1800s; this was monumental as before x- rays were used, doctors could not see broken bones, swallowed objects, etc., without cutting open the person. Wilhelm Roentgen can be credited with discovering x-rays when he was experimenting with cathode rays. In the end, he determined that x-rays could penetrate human 2

Riley Doyle HOM-5306-D02 4/02/2023 flesh, providing doctors with pictures of bones and tissue. In 1901, Roentgen received the first Nobel Prize in physics (Chodos & Ouellette, 2001). In the 1870s, society started to enact medical educational reform when universities began to associate themselves with medical programs. Harvard Medical School did a transformation of their program during this time period. In 1893, John Hopkins University opened up their first medical school. Medical school entrance basic requirement was transitioned from a high school diploma to a graduate degree (Shi & Singh, 2017). Abraham Flexner further revamped the medical program when he performed what is referred to as the Flexner report. This study is the reason why physicians must have clinical studies and labs to graduate with a medical doctorate degree. Moving on to the topic of health insurance, before the Great Depression, health insurance in the United States was mainly held by the private sector. Private health insurance started at Baylor University Hospital in Dallas, Texas. Justin Kimball pioneered the idea of getting teachers to pay fifty centers each month in exchange for twenty-one days of hospital care. This became known as the prepaid plan and was adopted by insurance companies such as Blue Cross (Shi & Singh, 2017). Furthermore, part of the reason health insurance was largely private sector is due to the democratic ideals in the United States. America was born on the vision of freedom, with people getting to make their own choices, such as who their health insurance provider is. Additionally, healthcare insurance favored the middle-class families in America because they could afford the higher costs, while the disadvantaged, such as the retired or unemployed citizens, struggled to receive healthcare coverage. Thus, social and political pressures led to the 3

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