Milton I. Roemer

Milton Irwin Roemer (born 1916 in Paterson , † January 3, 2001 in Los Angeles ) was an American social medicine doctor .

Live and act

At Cornell University he received a diploma (BA) in biology in 1936, a further diploma (MD) from New York University in 1940 and an MA in Cornell in sociology in the same year. After a short-term employment with the "New Jersey Department of Health" he went to Ann Arbor , where he received an MA in Public Health in 1943 from the University of Michigan .

US Public Health Service

In 1943 he joined the US Public Health Service in Washington , where he held various functions in various departments. From Washington Roemer also attended the evening seminars on social medicine that Henry E. Sigerist held in Baltimore . In 1948 he became director of the Health Department in one of West Virginia counties.

Yale University

In 1949 he became an assistant professor of social and administrative medicine at Yale University .

WHO - McCarthy Hysteria

In 1950 Roemer was asked by the WHO for assistance in drafting health plans for El Salvador and Ceylon (today Sri Lanka) and from 1951 he was responsible for the areas of occupational medicine, hospital administration, medical aspects of social insurance, medical rehabilitation, in the growing WHO in Geneva , Organization of medical assistance, marine hygiene, communicable disease control, traffic accident prevention and medical aspects of sport. In Geneva he was formally a federal employee of the USA . In 1953, when the McCarthy hysteria was at its height, he was forced out of office by the US government as a victim of a loyalty conflict.

Saskatchewan

In 1944 the Socialist Government of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan won an election with the promise, among other things, of introducing a comprehensive system of social health services. To carry out this promise, it set up a Health Services Survey Commission. Henry E. Sigerist was invited by the newly elected Prime Minister Tommy Douglas to lead this commission and he toured the province from September 3 to October 3, 1944. In closing, he presented the Minister of Health with a report outlining a program for the gradual socialization of the health system in Saskatchewan.

Through Sigerist's mediation, Roemer was able to get the position of director of the Medical and Hospital services of the Saskatchewan Department of Public Health in Regina in 1953 . In September he and his family traveled by ship from Europe via New York to Canada. During a stopover in New York, his luggage was searched and his American passport was confiscated. In Regina he was cut off from international scientific exchange, but was able to work practically in the development of the progressive Canadian health system. He built the first social insurance system for hospital care in North America. In Canada he also proposed what became known as the Roemer rule: "The number of hospital beds available creates demand for them." Roemer stayed in Canada until the McCarthy hysteria in 1957 subsided.

Cornell University

1957 Director of the Sloan Institute of Hospital Administration at Cornell University in Ithaca , New York.

University of California

1962 - 1986 (retirement) Professor of Health Administration in the Department of Health Services at the University of California at Los Angeles .

Works (selection)

• Together with FD Mott. Rural health and medical care . McGraw-Hill, New York 1948
• Medical care in Latin America . Pan American Union, Washington DC 1963.
• The organization of medical care under social security; a study based on the experience of eight countries . (International Labor Office: Studies and reports.) Geneva 1969
• Together with JW Friedman. Doctors in hospitals: medical staff organization and hospital performance . Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore 1971
• Health care systems in world perspective . Health Administration Pr., Ann Arbor, Mich. 1976 ISBN 0-914904-13-2
• Systems of health care. Springer, New York 1977, ISBN 0-8261-2495-X
• Social medicine; the advance of organized health services in America. Springer, New York 1978, ISBN 0-8261-2600-6
• Ambulatory health services in America. Past, present and future . Aspen Systems Corp, Rockville MD 1981
• Together with Ruth Roemer. Health care systems and comparative manpower policies . Marcel Dekker, New York 1981
• An introduction to the US health care system . Springer, New York 1982
• Together with Tamas Fueloep. International development of health manpower policy . WHO, Geneva 1982
• Together with Bogdan M. Kleczkowski and Albert van DerWerff. National health systems and their reorientation towards health for all; guidance for policy-making. WHO, Geneva 1984, ISBN 92-4-130077-9
• National strategies for health care organization; a world overview . Health Administration Press, Ann Arbor, Mich. 1985 ISBN 0-914904-99-X
• National health systems of the world . Volume I: The countries; Volume II: Issues. Oxford University Press, New York & London 1991; 1993.

literature

• Ruth Roemer. Milton I. Roemer, 1916-2001 . In: Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 2001, 79 (5), p. 481 (pdf)
• Marcel H. Bickel . Correspondence Henry E. Sigerist - Milton I. Roemer 1937–1957 . Online publication of the Institute for the History of Medicine, Bern 2012 (pdf)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Henry E. Sigerist. The Johns Hopkins Institute of the History of Medicine during the academic year 1944-1945. … III Field Work in Canada and India. In: Bulletin of the History of Medicine. Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, Volume 18 (1945), pp. 230-231
2. ↑ Henry E. Sigerist. Saskatchewan health services survey commission . In: Milton I. Roemer (Ed.): Henry E. Sigerist on the Sociology of Medicine. MD Publishing, New York 1960, pp. 209-228