ABSTRACT
In a history that has unfolded in multiple ways within different national boundaries in the last century, it has gone through several stages and reached maturation in many countries in the 1960s. The extent and form the welfare state took varied from country to country, reflecting economic viability, political ideology, and cultural history. The countries represent a range of economic development from Japan, the US, and Germany as post-industrial nations, to the U.S.S.R., Hungary, and the People's Republic of China as secondand third-world economies. The salary comparisons suggest that doctors are well-paid professionals, particularly in Japan, but deprofessionalized in the socialist countries. In every country except the US and Australia, patients do not much question the authority of their doctors. In some countries, the writer openly comments on the respect for authority that dominates the patient-doctor relationship. Countries spending less than the US has better rates: for example, infant mortality rates in Japan, Canada, France, Germany, Australia, and Britain.
