Medicine has made great technical strides in the past half century, "but the old spiritual relationship between physician and patient is gone," Dr. Edward Schumann said Wednesday in New Orleans.
The Philadelphia specialist in obstetrics and gynecology gave the first annual Peter Graffagnino lecture in the auditorium of the new addition to the Louisiana State University medical school.
He told how a hospital patient nowadays can be "beautifully and skillfully treated in all respects" at a modern hospital and then "go to a psychologist to resolve her anxieties about the whole thing."
This patient, he said, is treated by perhaps a dozen experts and yet when asked by a friend "who performed your operation?" has to reply "Why, I don't know." PHOTO:AMONG THE PRINCIPAL MEDICAL FIGURES participating Wednesday at the first annual Peter Graffagnino lecture in the Louisiana State university medical school auditorium were (from left) Dr. Edward Schumann, Philadelphia specialist in obstetrics and gynecology who delivered the lecture; Dr. Peter Graffagnino, in whose honor the series was instituted; Dr. Edgar Hull, associate dean of the LSU medical school, and Dr. Milton McCall, head of the school's department of obstetrics and gynecology.
