Seneca celebrates National Doctors’ Day

The Seneca Healthcare District decided that National Doctors’ Day, March 30, was a prime opportunity to recognize and thank the doctors that serve the Lake Almanor community.

Health professionals can sometimes be underappreciated, especially when one considers the time and effort most have expended to achieve their chosen profession and the importance of their roll in the community.

The pathway to becoming a doctor can be rife with overwhelming challenges. A short description of the steps necessary to become a doctor include:

Step 1: Earn a bachelor’s degree.

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Step 2: Pass the Medical College Admission Test.

Step 3: Apply to and be accepted to a medical school.

Step 4: Attend and complete medical school.

Step 5: Complete three to four years of (post graduate) residency training.

Step 5: Become licensed.

This doesn’t even take into account that the cost of becoming a doctor has soared in recent years.

Higher education costs are leaving the average newly minted physician with an average of $166,750 in medical school debt.

Add these challenges to the fact that even after they are licensed to practice, many will likely face a life of long hours and high stress working conditions.

It is no wonder that a physician’s life is becoming the road less traveled by many.

What is National Doctors’ Day? The idea was originally conceived and celebrated March 30, 1933, when Eudora Brown Almond, wife of Dr. Charles B. Almond, set a day aside to honor physicians.

There have been numerous regional observances over many years, but it wasn’t until President George H.W. Bush signed legislation March 30, 1990, that it became a nationally recognized holiday with the intent to recognize the contributions of physicians to individual lives and communities.

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SHD’s Doctors Day celebration was in fine form as hospital staff and administration hosted an enormous buffet lunch and presented the doctors with traditional red carnations and gift packages as tokens of appreciation.

The Lake Almanor Clinic conference room was quickly filled with staff from every department to celebrate the occasion.

Dr. Frederic de Picciotto offered a few words on the origins of Doctors’ Day and stressed that all the doctors in the room could not accomplish their work without the dedicated medical and administrative staff working at the hospital.