This past Friday (March 30th) was National Doctors’ Day.  We got some cookies and heart shaped chocolates.  I thought it was just a Children’s Hospital thing, but then I learned that it’s actually a nationally recognized day, always on March 30th.

The history of Doctors’ Day – 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, GA, used ether to remove 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. In 1990, legislation was introduced into the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate to establish a National Doctors’ Day. Following overwhelming approval by the House and Senate, then-President George H. W. Bush signed a resolution designating March 30 as National Doctors’ Day. The first National Doctors’ Day was celebrated in 1991.