The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1898-01-18
HOSPITAL SURGEONS.
POSITIONS HARD TO GET, AND IT
ISN'T EASY TO FILL Them.

A visiting Surgeon Sees Thousands of
Cases q Year = The Ambulance Doctor
Defended-Merit Wins, but a Little Pull
Is Not q Bad Thing.
Every graduate of the New York med
ical schools would be glad to hold for the
first IS months of his professional life a
post on the staff of metropolitan hospi-
tai. Perhaps one graduate in 80 obtains
such an appointment. So valuable to a
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 the
staff vacancies are to be filed, 90, 30, 30
young men present themselves for exami-
nation. Graduates Of the Harvard Medica,
school come over to these examinations,
partly because there Is wider experience
to be had here than in Boston, partly per.
haps because 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 % to near 30 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 $1,000 or 10, 900 cases In
a single year, such a 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 to 90 doctors ON It's 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
go ont with the ambulance when a call
comes in. The police or private persons
now and then complain that a man has
lain 40 or 90 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 stopping place in that duty and
change his clothing before he can go 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. have In
two hours to see from 60 to 80 patients
with all sorts of injuries from a crushed
finger to broken thigh. l must diagnose
rapidly, and should 1 listen to demands
for anasthetios 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 sympathetic crowd.
Tender the hospital surgeon should be,
but sympathetic he must not be. The
sympathetic junior is marked out for feil
marked out for dismissal. A surgeon
never performs an important operation
upon member of his own family. He
distrusts his own skill as affected by sym
patty.
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 hospital has 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 a small hospital are often or
duty night and day, aud 1t is lucky
night when the busy junior has sever
hours of unbroken sleep. The 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 wore
where he may be found.
But If the service of the New York hos
pitfalls is hard 1t furnishes the very best
practical school in medicine, and especially
In surgery, to be found anywhere IL
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 the
duty OF an ordinary surgeon in a lifetime
and some of such operations he has seer
and taken part in many times over. The
cosmopolitan character of the city and itl
immense floating population make it the
temporary home of more strange diseases
than any other city of the continent, sc
that the hospital physician has beneath his
eyes the ailments of the world.
Considering the great opportunities opeI
to the hospital surgeon, laymen otter
wonder whether influence has aught to dc
with appointments to hospital staffs. II
has and it has not. Examinations arr
rigid and fairly conducted, yet the mar
that passes the best technical examination
Is not always the man that gets the ap
pointmept Yet, on the other hand, ar
incapable man is seldom or never appoint
ed The personal equation always helps
to determine an appointment. A oandi
dates appearance, manner, speech anC
general record at school are taken into con
sideration. The examiners are often tn,
same men who have instructed the candi
dates in the medical schools, and an ex
aminer puts together his knowledge of 6
candidate as obtained in three or foul
years contact with him in the lecture
room and at clinics and the knowledge Of
him drawn from the examination. A stu
dent of known bad habits, Of conspicuous
defects, will rot be appointed to hospital
staff, no matter how good his examina
ton.
1t is the most ambitious students thai
seek appointments to the hospital stats
and man is seldom content to leave 6
New York hospital and settle down tt
practice in country town. The ablesi
hospital surgeons attract the attention o.
visiting missions and others distinguished
In the profession and obtain partnerships
or promotion of some other kind. Some
settle In New York, and few are content
with anything less than a considerable