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There is a critical shortage ol physicians, particularly famil) physicians in Virginia now. This shortage is adversely affecting hospitals, local businesses and community efforts to attract industry. A special committee set up by a resolution of the 1970 General Assembly to study the shortage of family physicians was given this information by Edgar J. Fisher, Jr., Director of the Virginia Council on Health and Medical Care of Richmond. The special committee is part of the Virginia Advisory Legislative Council. Delegate H. Richardson of Dinwiddie is serving as Chairman of the special committee.
Mr. Fisher, whose organization has been operating one of the nation’s leading Physician Referral Service since 1950, was a keynote speaker at the first public hearing held by the special committee recently in Richmond.
“In the twenty-two years I have been with the Virginia Council on Health and Medical Care,’’ Mr. Fisher said, “I have never known a time when the public has been so concerned and stirred up about the shortage of family physicians as it is today...The public, the consumer of medical care, is caught up in the middle of the dilemma surrounding the shortage of family physicians. The public feels helpless, forgotten and bypassed. Overworked physicians are often abrupt, hurry their patients, are unavailable on weekends and have drastically cut down on house calls. This upsets patients, but physicians are not always to blame.” Mr. Fisher pointed out that the shortage of family physicians exist in every part of the state, rural as well as urban areas. In his statement Mr. Fisher said, “Many hospitals are frantically looking for family physicians to replace those who have died, retired or left.” He said that over sixty established family physicians are currently looking for associates and have been unsuccessful in getting them. To give an idea of the competition in which communities are forced to participate to attract physicians, Mr. Fisher cited the example of the Page Memorial Hospital in Luray which financed two round trips from Ohio for two physicians and their families to
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