The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1897-07-24
HOSPITAL SURGEONS.
POSITIONS HARD TO GET, AND IT
ISN'T EASY TO FILL THEM.

Defended--Merit Wins, but "a Little Pull
Is Not Bad Thing.
Every graduate of the New York med
ical schools would be glad to hold for the
first 1S months of his professional life q
post on the staff of "a metropolitan hospi
tai. Perhaps one graduate in 30 obtains
such an appointment. So valuable to a
physician or surgeon Is hospital practice
in New York that graduates in medicine
from all tho region round flock to the an
nual examinations of the hospitals. III the
staff vacancies are to be filed, 90, 80, 90
young men present themselves for exami-
nation. Graduates of the Harvard Medical
school come over to these examinations,
partly because there is a wider experience
to be had here than in Boston, partly per-
haps becauss u young man going upon the
staff of Boston hospital must come not
as graduate in medicine with the diplo-
ma of M. D., but as a sort of house pupil
or apprentice in medicine.
All physicians and surgeons to the New
| York hospitals, save the Psychologists, serve
without pay. Newly graduated doctors,
men from 23 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 10, 900 or IL, 900 cases in
| n single year, such number as not the
busiest surgeon could see in private practice
during a 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 to 90 doctors on its house staff.
The house surgeon proper has general
charge CT 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
go 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-
cuso for the delay. Sometimes he is of in
another direction on ambulance duty
More often perhaps the call finds him aid
ing at surgical operation, and he must
reach u stopping place in that duty and
change his clothing before he can 90 out
in response To "A call.
The hospital surgeon and his friends
have multitude of answers to the charge
of brutality now and then brought
against the former. "Should you see me
at my hospital work" said the visiting
surgeon of famous hospital, "you' d think
me rude and perhaps brutal. L have In
two hours to see from go TO 90 patients
with all sorts of injuries from a crushed
| l., \ Il ftFN.,c
rapidly, and should / listen to demands
for anasthetics or heed the hundred and
one other pleas of the patients / should
never finish my work. 1t 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 OF
comments of u sympathetic crowd"
Tender the hospital surgeon should be
r but sympathetic he must not be. Th'
= sympathetic Junior is marked out for fail
: ure Just as the sympathetic nurse Il
= marked out for dismissal. A surgeon
never performs an important operation
upon a member of his own family. Iii
distrusts his own skill rs affected by sym
pathy.
Hospital surgeons are among the hard
q est worked men of their profession. The.
;. have no fixed hours of duty and may b.
: called upon for service at any hour OF tn
:, day or night. When a hospital has larg
:. staff of medical men, il Is possible for tn
r, members of the staff to arrange among
T. themselves for days and hours off, but tn
= doctors of small hospital are often oil
p duty night and day, and it is n luck,
d night when the busy junior has sever
d hours of unbroken sleep. The house sur
d geon and the senior of a small hospita
d must never be absent at the same time
d and an absent house physician must neve
be many hours away without leaving wore
h where he may be found.
n But if the service of the New York hos
- pitals is hard it furnishes the very hes
=: practical school in medicine, and especially
J. in surgery TO be found anywhere IL
IS America At the end of Is months serv
, ice the young hospital surgeon has seen per
formed, and perhaps has helped to perform
nearly every operation that falls to tn
duty of an ordinary surgeon in lifetime
3, and some of such operations he has seel
v and taken part in many times over III
ar cosmopolitan character Of the city and IL
a immense floating population make 1t tn
30 Temporary home of more strange disease
n than any other city of the continent, $
Z that the hospital physician has beneath hi
- eyes the ailments of tho world.
u Considering the great opportunities opel
l., to the hospital surgeon, laymen oftoi
% wonder whether influence has augbt to d
10 with appointments to hospital stalls. l
ir has and it has not. Examinations ar
m rigid and fairly conducted, yet the ma
y that passes the best technical examination
30 is not always the man that gets the az
,s pointmept. Yet, on the other hand, al
10 incapable man is seldom or never appoint
lie ed. The personal equation always help
ct to determine an appointment A candi
Ic dates appearance, manner, speech an
w general record at school are taken into con
W sideration. The examiners are often Tn
same men who have instructed the candl
dates in tho medical schools, and an OK
aminer puts together his knowledge OF
! candidate as obtained In three or fou
81 years. contact with him In the lectur
:. room and at clinics and the knowledge Q
80 him drawn from the examination. A stu
t. dent of known bad habits, of coDspicuou
I'd defects, will not be appointed to hospita