Martinsburg independent. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1875-1900, 1897-08-21
HOSPITAL SU RG EONS.
POSITIONS AARD TO GIT, AND /
ISN'T EASY 10 FILL THEM

ISN'T EASY TO FILL THEM.
Visiting Surgeon Sees Thousands Of
Cases Year = The Ambulance Doctor
Defended Merit Wins, but little Pull
Is Not Rad Thing.
Every graduate of tho New York med
teal schools would be glad to hold for the
first is months of his professional life u
post on the staff of a metropolitan hospi-
raj. Perhaps one graduate in so obtains
such an appointment. So valuable to q
physician or surgeon is hospital practice
in New York that graduates in medicine
from all the region round flock to the an
nual examinations Of the hospitals. If tho
staff vacancies are to be filled, 20, so, 80
young men present themselves for exami-
nation. Graduates OF the Harvard Medical
school come over TO these examinations,
partly because there is wider experience
to be had here than in Boston, partly per-
haps because a young man going upon the
staff of Boston hospital must come not
as graduate in medicine with The diplo-
ma oil NJ D., but as sort of house pupil
or apprentice in medicine.
All physicians and surgeons to the New
York hospitals, save the pathoiogisfs, serve
without pay. Newly graduated doctors,
men from 2S to near 80 years Of age, have
appointments for about Is months. Con-
sulting surgeons, always skilled and often
highly distinguished, are glad to serve
without pay for two years together be-
cause it is here that experience is gained
and regulations are made. A visiting
surgeon may see 10000 or Il, 600 cases in
n single year. such number as not the
busiest surgeon could see in private practice
during like season.
Junior, senior, house-that Is the order
of promotion in the hospital service for
both physicians and surgeons. The young
graduate has in the natural order of things
six months in each place. Every hospital
has from 3 to 20 doctors on its house staff.
The house surgeon proper has general
charge of all surgical cases after they have
been seen by the visiting surgeon. The
same is true of the house physician. The
junior or senior, as the case may be, must
60 ont with the ambulance when call
comes in. The police or private persons
now and then complain that a man has
lain 40 or 80 minutes, perhaps two hours,
awaiting an ambulance after the call has
been sent out Most of the time the am
bulance surgeon has an entirely sound ex-
cuse for the delay. Sometimes he is off in
another direction on ambulance duty.
More often perhaps the call finds him aid
ing at surgical operation, and he must
reach "a stopping place in that duty and
change his clothing before he can go out
in response to call.
The hospital surgeon and bis friends
have q multitude Of answers to the charge
Of brutality how and then brought
against the former. "Should you see me
at my hospital work, said the visiting
surgeon of afamous hospital, you'd think
me rude and perhaps brutal. I have ia
two hours to see from GO to 80 patients
with all sorts Of inisries from crushed
finger to broken thigh I must diagnose
rapidly, and should / listen to demands
for anmsthetfcs or heed the hundred and
one other pleas Of the patients I should
never finish my work. It is so with the
young ambulance surgeon kneeling beside
the injured man on the sidewalk. He
must do what he has to do with all speed
without stopping to heed the advice or
comments of sympathetic crowd"
Tender the hospital surgeon should be,
but sympathetic he must not be. The
sympathetic junior is marked out for fail
ure just as the sympathetic nurse Is
y
never performs an important operation
upon n member Of his own family. He
distrusts his own skill as affected BY sym
pathy.
Hospital surgeons are among the hard
est worked men Of their profession. They
have no fixed hours Of duty and may be
called upon for service at any hour Of the
day or night. When a hospital has a large
staff Of medical men, it is possible for the
members Of the staff to arrange among
themselves for days and hours off, but the
doctors of q small hospital are often on
duty night ard day, and it is lucky
night when the busy junior has seven
hours OF unbroken sleep. Tho house sur
geon and the senior Of a small hospital
must never be absent at the same time
and an absent house physician must never
be many hours away without leaving word
where he may BIO found.
But If the service of the New York hos
pitfalls is hard it furnishes the very best
practical school in medicine, and especially
in surgery, TO be found anywhere in
America. At the end of IS months serv-
ice heyouns hospital surgeon has seen per
formed, and perhaps has helped TO perform,
nearly every operation that falls to the
duty of an ordinary surgeon in lifetime,
and some Of such operations he has seen
and taken part in many times over. The
cosmopolitan character Of tho city and its
immense floating population make it the
temporary home Of more strange diseases
than any other city of the continent so
that the hospital physician has beneath his
eyes the ailments of the world.
Considering the great opportunities open
to the hospital surgeon, laymen often
wonder whether influence has aught to DO
with appointments to hospital stats. 1t
has and it has not. Examinations are
rigid and fairly conducted, yet the man
that passes the best technical examination
is not always the man that gets the ap-
pointment. Yet, on the other hand, an
incapable man is seldom or never appoint
ed. The personal equation always helps
to determine an appointment. A eandi-
dates appearance, manner, speech and
general record at school are taken into con-
sideration. The examiners are often the
same men who have instructed the eandi-
dates in the medical schools, and an OK
aminer puts together his knowledge of d
candidate as obtained in three or feur
years contact with him in the lecture
room and at clinics and the knowledge Of
him drawn from the examination A stu
ASAlb VI fA9IOA4 u AttNA 4lesDlLas VI COusllCuCAB
defects, will not be appointed to a hogpital
staff, no matter how good his examine
ton.
1t is the most ambitious students that
seek appointments TO sJe hospital STATS,
and a mga Is seldom content to leaye a
New York hospital and settle down TO
practice ia country town. The ablest
hospital surgeons attract the attention Of
visiting missions and others distipo11is berl
in the profession and obtain partnerships
or promotion of some other kind. Some
settle in New York, and few arc content
with anything loss than a considerable
eity.-New York Sun.
The One Thing Needful.
Waiter, what did the cook use in cut
ting these chops?"
90 A clpave- STRIP