The Department of Health and Senior Services today thanked physicians throughout New Jersey for their commitment to their patients and for the work they do serving their communities.

Approximately 33,000 physicians are licensed to practice medicine in New Jersey. They work as primary care physicians, surgeons, specialists, hospitalists, epidemiologists, public health specialists, pediatricians, obstetricians, radiologists, internists, family practice physicians, policymakers, researchers, administrators and educators. They are involved in medical breakthroughs that result in advances in medical innovation.

“As the state’s leading public health agency, the Department recognizes the important partnership we have with the state’s physicians who are on the front lines of not only providing medical care but reporting and investigating disease outbreaks and advising patients on how to manage chronic disease and adopt a more healthy lifestyle,” said Commissioner Poonam Alaigh, MD, a board certified internist with a specialty in vascular diseases.

National Doctors’ Day was first observed on March 30, 1933—the anniversary of the day that anesthesia was first administered to a patient in 1842. In 1990, former President George H. W. Bush signed a law designating March 30 each year as National Doctors’ Day.

In addition to recognizing practicing physicians, today offers an opportunity to recognize the next generation of physicians—the students who are training in excellent medical schools and hospitals throughout our state. Medical students are the future of health care.

New Jersey values it physicians and the role they play in excellence in health care around the state.