Which of the following factors was particularly important in promoting the growth of office-based medical practice in the postindustrial period?

Question

Options

• AUrbanization
• BEducational reform
• CScience and technology
• DDependency
• Elicensing

• A
  92% (47)
• B
  4% (2)
• C
  2% (1)
• D
  2% (1)

Explanation

Urbanization concentrated large populations into cities, making it economically feasible for physicians to maintain a fixed office location with enough nearby patients to sustain a practice. Before dense urban settlement, physicians largely made house calls across dispersed rural areas - a fixed office was impractical without a sufficient local patient base to fill it.

Why the distractors are wrong:

• B. Educational reform - The Flexner Report and similar reforms professionalized medicine but were more about who could practice, not where they practiced.
• C. Science and technology - These advances actually pushed medicine toward hospitals (expensive equipment, surgery, diagnostics) rather than private offices.
• D. Dependency - Patient reliance on physicians is a general dynamic, not a structural driver specific to office-based practice growth.
• E. Licensing - Licensing restricted entry into the profession overall but didn't specifically favor office settings over other practice models.

Memory tip: Think "density enables offices" - a doctor can only have a fixed office if enough patients live close enough to come to them. Urbanization = population density = viable office practice.

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