National Doctors' Day is always March 30. In 2007, it is on Friday. The first Doctors' Day observance was March 30, 1933, in Winder, Ga. The idea came from Eudora Brown Almond, wife of Dr. Cha Almond, and the date was the anniversary of the first use of general anesthetic in surgery (on March 30, 1842, Dr. Crawford Long of Barrow County, Georgia, used ether while removing a tumor from a patient's neck). The Barrow County Medical Society Auxiliary proclaimed the day “Doctors' Day,” which was celebrated by mailing cards to physicians and their wives, and by placing flowers on the graves of deceased doctors, including Dr. Long. The United States House of Representatives adopted a resolution commemorating Doctors’ Day on March 30, 1958, though it wasn't celebrated nationally until 1991 following an act of Congress.
Doctor-patient relationships are changing, for a variety of reasons, including: