100 Years of Medical Economics

A photo essay from 1948 captures the life of a small town country doctor in vivid detail.

What stands out about the physician tools of 2023 is how many of them are updated versions of old tech. But it’s the new ones ­— the computer, and everything it brought with it ­— that have transformed the profession.

Many of the popular tools of the physicians of the past have gone out of fashion (others haven’t) but they live on as symbols of the doctor.

What's inside the Medical Economics 100th anniversary issue.

Primary care medicine has undergone enormous changes in the past hundred years.

How have a century of changes played out in terms of everyday medical practice?

Specialization is perhaps the most profound change in medical practice during the past century.

How doctors are paid has changed dramatically with the rise of third-party payers.

Medical malpractice has existed for more than 100 years, but changed considerably as medicine advanced.

The year 2020 marked a turning point for American medical practice.

Primary care, like health care generally, has undergone enormous change in the hundred years since Medical Economics published its first issue. But what of the future?

A conversation with family physician Melissa Lucarelli, M.D.

A century of breakthrough, discovery and invention — and the pioneers who made medical history.

'I can see my bones!'

'Church bells rang out'

'From weird and wonderful places'

'The rational treatment of disease.'

"Plaster and sticks and casts and traction."

Advances in infection control, surgery, antibiotics and trauma that are used to treat patients today were essentially forged on the field of battle over the last 100 years.

“He ultimately saw it as a way to improve people’s lives.”

The physician's role in American culture.

An interview with 101-year-old physician Howard Tucker, M.D.

The physician workforce is more diverse than it ever has been, and the diversity is only increasing.

Learn about Aerial Petty, D.O., a rising star in the next generation of primary care physicians.

Learn about Chase Mussard, M.D., a star in the next generation of primary care physicians.

What will being a physician look like in the future, and how will health care change?

From the editor-in-chief, L. Allen Dobson, M.D.

For a publication to survive and thrive for a century puts us in rarified air. How do you celebrate such an event?