Family Doctor

WASHINGTON -- The nation has a severe shortage of general physicians and a surplus of specialists, a trend that must be reversed soon if major repairs are going to be made to the ailing health-care system, a federal advisory panel has warned in a report to be made public soon.The study is expected to be taken seriously by the Clinton administration, because it has set health-care reform as an early goal, because the head of the panel, Dr. David Satcher, is said to be on the short list for the job of secretary of health and human services in the new administration, and because Democrats and Republicans have indicated that health-care reform will be at the top of the priority list for Congress next year.

Nearly 2,400 Carroll members of the state's largest health maintenance organization found a surprise in their mailbox earlier this month -- their family doctor was being changed.Because Carroll Primary Care Associates servered its ties with the Columbia FreeState Health System several weeks ago, patients of the Washington Road facility must choose another of the HMO's Carroll County doctors."Carroll Primary Care had become closed to new Columbia Freestate members," said David Wolf, the HMO's president.

WASHINGTON--- Ashocking report from the National Association of Public Hospitals says that the average emergency-room wait for a bed in America's public hospitals is more than five and a half hours! In some cases, it may be several days.Moreover, the report says, these hospitals, often regarded as the foundation of our nation's health system, are deteriorating in other ways. Unless they get help, ''there will be a substantial curtailment of safety-net services in many urban areas.''It's easy for most Americans to say: ''That's too bad, but it doesn't really affect me. I don't have to go to a public hospital for care.

BOULDER, Colo. -- At the age of 28, Greg Wiatt was living in Boulder, messed up and abusing drugs.He had been a gifted student in his Midwestern school, with an IQ of 167. But the disparity between him and his father, who had an IQ of 90, and was shorter and thinner than his tall, strapping blond son, was causing acute anxiety for the boy.The feelings intensified as Greg got older. His parents drifted apart and eventually divorced. When his father had a stroke, Greg became his sole guardian.