Doctors get their day of honor and recognition

This is a good time of year to say thank you to the doctor or doctors in your life.  Across America, March 30 is Doctors Day, an annual observance aimed at appreciating physicians who help save and improve lives everywhere.

The holiday first started in 1933 in Winder, Ga., and since then it’s been honored every year on March 30, the anniversary of a doctor, Crawford Long of Georgia, using ether as anesthesia.  Today, healthcare organizations and ordinary patients and citizens continue to celebrate medical advances like these and thank all doctors everywhere who’ve spent so much time and energy mastering their fields of expertise.

Eudora Brown Almond, the wife of a doctor in Georgia, believed her husband and other physicians deserved more recognition for their hard work and set out to make this idea a reality. The first observed Doctors’ Day occurred on March 30, 1933, exactly 91 years after Dr. Long’s remarkable discovery.

Mrs. Almond mailed greeting cards to all local physicians and their wives, and put flowers on the graves of deceased doctors, including Dr. Long. The flowers were red carnations, which would later become the representative flower for the national holiday.

A few other local doctors’ wives even assisted Mrs. Almond in preparing a celebratory luncheon so their husbands’ work in healthcare could be publicly appreciated.

The tradition of delivering greeting cards to physicians, both alive and deceased, has continued throughout the years and is still a common way of celebrating this holiday today. The red carnation is also still popularly used to say thank you to doctors for their work in medicine.

Doctors Day was celebrated unofficially for many years before it became a recognized holiday by the United States government. On March 30, 1958, the U.S. House of Representatives adopted a resolution that commemorates Doctors Day, and on October 30, 1990, President George W. Bush signed the legislation after approval by both houses of Congress.

It’s interesting to note that Doctors Days are celebrated in other lands, but often on different dates to recognize important physicians in those countries. 

Spain, Cuba and Argentina celebrate on Dec. 3 to commemorate the birthday of Dr. Carlos Juan Finlay, who famously identified mosquitos as the cause of yellow fever.  India celebrates on July 1 to commemorate the birthday of Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy, a leading physician, philanthropist and statesman.