Board of Directors Meeting, May 6, 1954 3
good job, fine. If not, it is our duty to improve ourselves. This matter of Censors brings to mind that there is no real complaint since the first of the year. There must be many more that never come to our level. Is this Board of Censors structure a satisfactory working structure? We have the problem of osteopaths, for instance, and we have doctors in Tucson for many years--all of us in this room know of one incident where a doctor should have been censured for eight or nine years, but we waited to have some patient come along who is intelligent enough to make us clean our own house.
I spoke with those fellows in Phoenix about their organization, and I would not say that I swallowed everything I was told, but I did appreciate knowing about it. For instance, the Professional Board struck me as a good thing. Who here tells new men who come to town about our relations with osteopaths, whether or not we use the prescriptions blanks dealt out by the pharmacists, etc.? Perhaps the new man gets off on the wrong foot by not knowing about our medical community.
Dr. Steen--Many of the things you are discussing now we have tried to do in the past, but the policy has always been one of "laissez-faire." At least three years ago we tried to get the Board of Censors to do that very thing, meet with the new fellows, but the Society was not ready for changes, and did not want it.
Dr. Bernstein--I know that it came up 5 or 6 years ago, and was not accepted. I wonder it would not be well to have another discussion about this?
Dr. Steen--So many fences can be built that every time a man wants to turn around he will have to get permission from the Professional Committee. We tried to have improvements here, but the group has not been ready for those things.
Dr. Bernstein--I think we are ready for those services now. For instance, employment services--up there they even hire your help for you. The solution to the whole problem is, shall we or are we ready to have an Executive Secretary? He would take care of those matters in such a way that in a year he would become indispensable.
Dr. Steen--My point is that we tried to do this--we could have done this right along. I do not think it means necessarily that we need to go out and spend seven or eight thousand dollars a year.
Dr. Engle--If the rest of the members of the Board of Directors feel that we could get a little better idea if we know what Mary does, shall we make a motion?
Dr. Beaton--I move that our secretary be instructed to prepare a statistical report of the type of activity for one month, to be presented to the Board of Directors at a later date.
Motion was seconded and carried.
Dr. Leo J. Kent reported that the matter of the examining physicians for the coroner's assistance has been settled, Dr. Frank Cohen has been allowed to keep his position at $12,000 a year, and Doctors Hartman, Louis Hirsh, and Fuller have set up a call system. A fee has been set up which is agreeable to all.
Dr. Harry Thompson--"May I ask about the Program Committee's arrangements for next year? In our last news letter we received a request for papers from members of the Society--I think that our By-Laws, under Committees, states--'the program committee, from the Speaker's Fund allotted by the Society, shall judiciously select speakers of outstanding medical talent to appear before the Society, who are not practising in this County, and shall accept volunteer speakers locally only when the program cannot otherwise be provided.' If the Program Committee desires to use local papers, we should have an amendment to the By-Laws."
Dr. Steen--"I was doing this in deference to the President. It was the result of our Committee meeting that some of the members of the Society be permitted to give some papers."
