National Doctors' Day

National Doctors' Day, observed March 30th, honors physicians and their contributions to patient care and medicine. The observance was first celebrated in 1933 in Winder, Georgia, organized by Eudora Brown Almond, the wife of a local physician, who chose the date to commemorate the anniversary of March 30, 1842, when Dr. Crawford Long became the first physician to use general anesthesia, specifically diethyl ether, during a surgical procedure, removing a tumor from a patient's neck painlessly, a genuine milestone in the history of surgery that dramatically transformed what medical procedures were survivable and tolerable for patients going forward. The early observance grew gradually at the local and state level for decades, with individual states adopting their own Doctors' Day proclamations, before Congress passed a joint resolution and President George H.W. Bush signed a proclamation formally establishing March 30th as National Doctors' Day nationwide in 1990. The holiday is traditionally marked with expressions of gratitude toward physicians, including cards, small gifts, and public recognition events organized by hospitals and healthcare systems, along with a long-standing, if now less common, tradition of placing red carnations on the graves of deceased physicians in some communities. On National Doctors' Day, people observe by thanking physicians for their care or hospitals hosting recognition events.