1942: Osteopathy

The participation of osteopathic physicians in both military medicine and civilian health activities, with radical changes from the procedures of normal times, including prehabilitation and rehabilitation both of military men and defense workers, brought about changes in their practice, as in that of all other doctors, and also in the steps they take to keep professionally abreast of the times. In various states, from California to New York, review courses were provided emphasizing the new problems and ways of handling them.

Programs of conventions have been changed radically, and the annual national gathering, July 1943, is to be a War Service Conference and Clinical Assembly. Interest on the part of osteopathic physicians in meetings of this type is shown in that nearly all state conventions reporting in 1942 set attendance records, and the national meeting in Chicago was among the largest in the history of the profession.

Governmental agencies directing the utilization and distribution of manpower for military and civilian needs have continued to take a long range view, insisting upon placing and retaining men and women in positions of maximum individual service. This has included not only the care of men in the armed forces, but also prehabilitation and rehabilitation, military and civil, already mentioned. It follows that not only are osteopathic physicians classed by the War Manpower Commission as being in an essential occupation, but also osteopathic and pre-osteopathic students, along with others training to be physicians of other schools, have been consistently kept in college.

Classes entering osteopathic colleges in the summer and fall of 1942 outnumbered those entering in the fall of 1941 as they, in turn, outnumbered those entering in 1940. Of course this was in part because vocational guidance activities were directed to the matriculation of those men who for one reason or another could not be engaged in military activities, and of women.

This year regulations were put in final form further to standardize pre-osteopathic college courses. Two years of such work has been required for matriculation in all the colleges, but in three the content of the courses was not expressly specified. Such minimums are now set up.

Osteopathic as well as other physicians have had to arrange their time and utilize it to the best advantage. This has called for more and larger hospitals, and financial campaigns in that direction have been successful in several localities.

The need for health education of the public continues to be recognized and the use of health broadcasts on the radio and the dissemination of health information through newspapers has continued, as well as instruction in such lines as first aid.

These pages last year reported the work of various specialty boards, to which there were added this year boards for specialists in obstetrics and gynecology, and for internists. The scope of practice of osteopathic physicians, and the range of activities in which they find themselves engaged, is indicated by the names of the bodies allied with the American Osteopathic Association, which met in 1942. The American Osteopathic Society of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology, the International Osteopathic Society of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology and the American Osteopathic Society of Proctology met in Detroit, and the American College of Osteopathic Surgeons convened in Kansas City. The other allied bodies which met in Chicago included Neuropsychiatrists, Internists, Obstetricians, Pediatricians, Herniologists, Orthopedic Surgeons.

1941: Osteopathy

The year 1941 marked advances in osteopathic participation in defense and public welfare activities, osteopathic physicians engaging in many phases of civilian defense, such as, home guard work, as well as serving with the armed forces.

Osteopathic organizations participated in innumerable conferences with state and national bodies, governmental and unofficial, having to do with the Selective Service System, Civilian Defense, Social Security, Child Welfare, Education, Nutrition and other matters, helping to reach decisions, and putting advanced methods into operation as they were agreed upon.

The necessity for continuing study on the part of physicians is reflected in an increasing number of state laws enacted at the request of osteopathic organizations, requiring annual review courses as a condition for maintaining a license to practice osteopathy. This year California, North Dakota and Ohio were added, California amending its law so as to require 30 hours of postgraduate work annually. Other legislative activity included these measures: Arizona enacted a straight osteopathic licensing board to take the place of the composite board which has prevailed (this being held up at least temporarily by a referendum); Arkansas, without a dissenting vote in either house, increased educational requirements for an osteopathic license; Georgia clarified and confirmed the rights which osteopathic physicians had for many years, until a court recently ruled against their right to employ drugs whose use is regulated by the Harrison narcotic law.

These pages last year reported the activities of the Committee on Research of the American Osteopathic Association. This year the American Association of Osteopathic Colleges also set up a Research Council to correlate activities in the various colleges and elsewhere. Its chairman has made a tour of osteopathic institutions, observing their research projects. Last year also there was reported the work of the Advisory Committee on Osteopathic Specialists, under the direction of which there were organized this year, in addition to the boards already functioning, the American Osteopathic Board of Anesthesiology, which is a subdivision of the American Osteopathic Board of Surgery; the American Osteopathic Board of Neurology and Psychiatry, and the American Osteopathic Board of Proctology.

Women physicians, through the Osteopathic Women's National Association, were active in public health measures and vocational guidance work, and participated in the Jubilee Convention of the General Federation of Women's Clubs. The Auxiliary to the American Osteopathic Association, an organization of lay women, took part in Red Cross activities and in civil defense measures, as well as giving its usual support to clinics and hospitals, and to public health education.

1940: Osteopathy

The osteopathic profession in 1940 went forward with general and specific efforts directed to the public welfare. Local and state organizations cooperated with their respective public health boards, commissions, and officers. The American Osteopathic Association continued its cooperation with the United States Public Health Service, and its connection with the Council on Mothers and Babies, advisory to the Children's Bureau of the Department of Labor. The Association was represented as usual at the meetings of the Federation of State Medical Boards, and had delegates in the section on Public Health and Medicine at the Eighth Pan-American Scientific Congress, and at the annual meeting of the American Council on Education. Its representatives were in contact with the officers of the American Association for Social Security.

There were more osteopathic physicians in 1940 than at any previous date in history, the total reaching 10,340, and more of them affiliated with their professional organizations, which became this year more close-knit than ever before.

The last remaining osteopathic colleges which had formerly required only one year of preprofessional college work went on a two-year preprofessional basis. Additional opportunities for postgraduate work were provided and the number of hospitals accredited for the training of interns was increased.

The 'divisional' societies (state, territorial and provincial) already mentioned in connection with their respective public health departments, to an increasing degree are providing refresher courses for their members, are setting up their state convention programs in the form of review courses, are arranging circuit programs for the district societies, so that for certain days in each month their meetings are held in rotation, with outstanding speakers giving review work at each, and in more and more cases are securing amendments to state laws requiring that in order to be eligible for the annual renewal of his license, a doctor must have had postgraduate work during the year.

A number of divisional societies very recently have regularly employed executive secretaries to keep these and other professional activities in order. Four states in 1940 adopted the House of Delegates form of professional government, increasing to eight the total which conduct their business affairs in this way in place of the old 'mass meeting' style.

The National Year Book for 1940 reported setting up of a Committee on Research, and the selection of its director. This director has proceeded with his efforts to correlate the various research enterprises in the different osteopathic colleges and other institutions, and also to direct individual research and the collection of significant statistics from osteopathic physicians in private practice.

The Advisory Committee on Osteopathic Specialists proceeded with its efforts to assure the public and the profession of adequate and well-trained specialists. The various specialty societies are setting up accrediting committees to examine applicants and, in cooperation with the Board of Trustees of the American Osteopathic Association, to issue certificates of proficiency.

1939: Osteopathy

Scientific studies directed toward improvements in the art of healing, both in the technique of its diagnostic and therapeutic methods and in its service to public health and welfare, marked the progress of osteopathy in 1939. The American Osteopathic Association set up a Committee on Research with a director who, as a part of his duties, may correlate the research enterprises in osteopathic colleges, hospitals, clinics and laboratories more directly concerned with research problems; guide these efforts in such a way as to avoid duplication, and carry forward the efforts already made by the former A. T. Still Research Institute and other such bodies over a period of several decades. It is the plan also to map rather definitely the course of future research to the end of a better understanding of underlying principles and their application in practice.

There also was completed in 1939 the organization of the Osteopathic Research Trust, which was set up to receive and administer funds from foundations and from philanthropically inclined individuals, and to guarantee to the sources providing such funds that they would be devoted in the most effective manner to efforts contributing to the public good. Also the Committee on Endowments, under the Committee on Public and Professional Welfare of the American Osteopathic Association, continued its work for making known the field which osteopathy offers to those who would contribute funds to enterprises directed to public welfare.

In the way of practical applications of the art of healing to the service of humanity, the American Osteopathic Association cooperated with, and contributed to, the thought and accomplishments of the National Council of Mothers and Babies, and also participated in the White House Conference on Children in a Democracy. Further, at its annual convention in Dallas it voted to continue its attitude announced a year earlier as a 'readiness to cooperate with employers and employees, with the representatives of lay organizations, with other medical organizations and with those departments of government interested in the problem, in working out a program of care (which will include for individuals the option of free choice of physician) to those not now receiving adequate medical care because of medical indigency.'

In addition to these efforts on the part of the profession as represented by its national association, individual and local group public service activities continued. Sick and injured persons with limited incomes have been served for years by the New York Osteopathic Clinic and the Osteopathic Association Clinic, London, England. Somewhat similar institutions have been established within recent months in Toronto and in Buffalo, where those who cannot pay the regular charges are given the advantage of service by the profession in those cities. Many smaller communities have given similar service for years.

Committees of the Association continue to study the various aspects of hospital service plans, medical service plans, group practice organizations, etc., as means of development for the profession, and of service to the people.