Medicine: The House-Call Habit

Thirty years ago, U.S. doctors saw four out of ten patients in the patients' houses; last year the ratio was one out of ten. The doctor himself has welcomed the passing of the house-call,* but many a citizen counts this skid as just one more sign that doctors are cold, uncaring fellows, heartlessly indifferent to the fact that little Priscilla's forehead feels hot or Grandma's arthritis is acting up. In Medical Economics, a Westwood. N.J.. pediatrician named Phoebe Hudson scoffs at this complaint. House calls, she says, "are just a bad habit." Her reasons:

> ''House calls, for the most part, are...

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