March 30 is Doctors’ Day, an annual observance aimed at appreciating physicians who help save our lives everywhere. The holiday first started in 1933 in Winder, Georgia, and since then it’s been honored every year on March 30 which was the first anniversary of a doctor using ether anesthesia by Dr. Crawford W. Long.
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.
Around the world, more than 9.2 million doctors doing their duties and as of September 2021 the total number of professionally active physicians in the United States amounted to 1,062,205 physicians.
According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, the shortage of physicians could increase to between 37,800 and 124,000 by 2034.