Michael Halberstam to J. Willard Colston

Letters Michael Halberstam to J. Willard Colston June 14, 1977 Mr. J. Willard Colston New York Times Syndicate 655 Madison Avenue New York, New York Dear Willard (I know I spelled your first name right), It was a pleasure meeting and talking to someone from the Times syndication for the first time, as I did earlier this week. For a long time, I wasn't quite sure whether the outfit existed or not, aside from talk of the legendary Olsenoko. I have never had any written communication from your outfit in the past, which accounts for the fact that I may have screwed up your last name. I enjoyed meeting you and I thought the meeting was very helpful. Let me reemphasize some of the things which I think may be helpful selling the column: 1. I am a physician in the daily private practice of internal medicine. I do not practice in a group or under an institutional umbrella. 2. I am certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine and have a subspecialty in cardiology. 3. I am an assistant clinical professor of medicine at George Washington University Medical School. 4. I am an elected member of the Institute of Medicine, which is usually described as the "prestigious" Institute of Medicine, the affilitate of the National Academy of Sciences. Letters 95 5. I have published in such medical journals as The New England Journal of Medicine, The Annals of Internal Medicine, The Archives of Internal Medicine, etc. 6. I am reasonably—almost professionally—literate. My writing career began with the Harvard Crimson, continued in summers with the Hartford Courant, and went on in terms of magazines when I was still in medical school to the Atlantic, Holiday, Life, and probably a dozen others. I have written two books with another on the way. 7. I am reasonably presentable, and can be trotted around to meetings and television shows to impress people with the wisdom of buying the column. Although all of the above are selling points, the one factor which I think makes the column distinct from any others is the fact that I am in daily private practice. I just read a little scrib about our friend Art Ulene, who does a sthick for the Today Show. He is pretty good, but, as the article points out, he sees only a very few patients and barely bothers to charge them. The daily practice of medicine is the whole fabric of my existence. Because I see 15 or so patients daily and handle another 20-30 phone calls, I think I am better prepared than most physician-columnists to tell what bothers people and to sense the currents of concern that arise in the population. I think I have a particular advantage in this, since a large part of my practice consists of young, relatively affluent, extremely consumer oriented lawyers, journalists, and other non-manual workers, who are extremely up to date on health matters. At the same time, of course, I have a good number of solid middle class and lower middle class patients, the kind who actually write in the letters to physician columnists. I suspect that columnists who depend on their letters alone for a reflection of what the public is thinking get a skewed perspective, since from what I have seen so far in my own mail comparatively few college educated or sophisticated people write to the newspaper physician. I think I have the best of both worlds in this matter. Althought I am sympathetic to what have been called "consumer" interests, I still am a physician in private practice and I still think that the doctor knows better. I do not think that in the column I will pander to what is fashionable or on the surface "consumer oriented" without linking these issues to medical reality. Therefore, I am less than enthusiastic about childbirth at home, and I think I can talk about if from the perspective of a physician who not only cares about his patients, but has also (in my 96 LETTERS Eskimo and Indian days) participated in a good deal of semi-primitive medicine. I like the idea of being...