World of medicine gets smaller, flatter

AMA Leader Commentary. By Edward L. Langston, MD, Dec. 3, 2007.

AMA LEADER COMMENTARY

A few words about current events in medical practice

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A message to all physicians from Edward L. Langston, MD, chair of the AMA Board of Trustees.

I was raised on a farm in central Indiana. It was a typical farm in the 1950s and 1960s in rural Indiana. My father planted corn, soybeans, wheat and oats. He farrowed and raised hogs; we call them swine these days.

Dad also had a herd of registered Aberdeen-Angus cattle. The herd was mostly breeding stock for resale and, of course, competitive 4-H stock for showing in county and state fairs.

Back then, the world was pretty well defined for me. My hometown, Burlington, Ind., population 300, was where I went to school, met my future wife and grew up in a supportive and small community. Kokomo, Logansport and Lafayette were larger cities, all within 25 miles, which provided a venue for shopping and sporting events at Purdue University, for instance.

Looking back, that world seems very limited, but at that time, it seemed big enough to me. Indianapolis was 52 miles due south. That was a special trip in those days. Not only did it require a special reason to travel that far, such a long journey occurred very infrequently. The most frequent reason was to transport a truckload of hogs to the stockyards in Indianapolis.

My world has changed, and radically so. The entire United States now is just a flight away -- business, pleasure or education. I think nothing of driving 65 miles to Indianapolis, flying to Chicago for a meeting, then off to Washington, D.C., to meet with congressional leaders, followed by a stopover in Connecticut to speak with the Hartford County Medical Assn. and the Connecticut Academy of Family Physicians and finally back to Indianapolis -- all within three days!