Wednesday, March 30th is National Doctor’s Day. This day is meant to recognize physicians – both living and dead – their work, and their contributions to the health of individuals and medical progress.
Doctor’s Day was first recognized on March 30, 1933 in Georgia by Eudora Brown Almond, the wife of a physician, when she decided that there should be a day to appreciate physicians. This date was significant because it was the anniversary of the first time general anesthesia was used in surgery in 1842. It became a national holiday on February 21, 1990, when President George Bush issued a proclamation in observance of this day, encouraging all Americans to observe this day with appropriate programs and activities (Medical Daily).
In honor of this holiday, we recreated a map of all the countries where Doctors Without Borders (Medicins Sans Frontieres) works to celebrate and honor their services to people across the globe. Doctors Without Borders was originally founded as Medecins Sans Frontiers amid the Parisian upheavals of May 1968, when a group of young doctors decided to go and help victims of wars and major disasters. From this emerged a new brand of humanitarianism which would reinvent the concept of emergency aid (Doctors Without Borders).
“Every year, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) provides emergency medical care to millions of people caught in crises in more than 60 countries around the world. MSF provides assistance when catastrophic events—such as armed conflict, epidemics, malnutrition, or natural disasters—overwhelm local health systems. MSF also assists people who face discrimination or neglect from their local health systems or when populations are otherwise excluded from health care…[And] on any given day, more than 30,000 doctors, nurses, logisticians, water-and-sanitation experts, administrators, and other qualified professionals working with MSF can be found providing medical care around the world” (Doctors Without Borders).
In honor of this national holiday, take a moment to appreciate the work of living and ceased physicians to aid our healing, advance medicine and technology, and keep our world healthy and strong!
Written by Kathleen Emerson (3/29/2016).
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