Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-12-28
STRENUOUS CITY LIFE
New Workers Discuss Which Is
Busiest Profession.
AGREE ON INTERNE'S WORK
Apprenticeship in Hospitals Is By
No Means a Joke.
LONG HOURS AND HARD WORK
Fewer Doctors Are Graduated in
New York Than Were Ten
Years Ago.
AGREE ON INTERNE'S WORK
LONG HOURS AND HARD WORK

What class of men live the most strenu-
Gus lives in New York? was topic re-
Gently launched on the waves OF discus
sion in the lobby of a Broadway hotel by
a broker, who, with the frenzy OF panic
activity still upon him. declared that no
one was so hard-worked as the man who
labors on change A lawyer pooh-poohed
this and claimed the title for his own pro-
fession, while other persons advanced
the claims of railroad men. newspaper
reporters and sweatshop workers Final
ly, a physician got the floor and de-
scribed the routine of an inferno at one
of the city hospitals. Whereupon the
company unanimously conceded the palm
for strenuousness to the young disciple of
Aesculapius.
The hospital inferno, 1t can safely be
said, is the hardest worked OF all in the
city who toll with brain or hands. 1t is
equally true that the young physician
serves the most arduous apprenticeship
demanded OF any profession. Before he
can even enter upon his two years of hos
pital service he must have had at least
four years of hard grind in medical col
lege.
Coveted Slavery; No Glory.
AS a medical student, from the very
start, he has an intellectual nine-hour
day. In the university and Bellevue Hos
pital Medical College of New York Uni
ve-sity, the largest university medical
school in the city, for example. the stu
dent is busy from o'clock in the morn
ing until o'clock at night, having solid
chunks of medical lore hurled at him in
the lecture halls, working with micro
scope or with scalpel in the laboratories,
or getting actual bedside experience at
the clinic of one of the big city hospitals.
The only interruption is time for hu--
ried bite Of luncheon. Saturday he
may leave few minutes earlier. But
often ne may be found toiling over some
bit of laboratory work until far into the
night.
But is is at the end of those four Cruel
ing years of study, after he Is an m. D"
and has become an inferno at one of the
great hospitals of the city. that the stu
dennt begins the hardest part of his ap-
premiership.
This hospital apprenticeship is consid-
cred so essential to a physician that all
the Understanding men in the medical
schools enter into the stiffest sort of ex-
aminations to qualify for service at the
best institutions. If man is admitted
to this coveted slavery, for which he re-
ceives no emolument. he will be about
thirty years of age when he leaves the
hospital, and, as a young doctor, starts
to build up private practice.
Difficulties Met in Work.
Bellevue, the great free hospital main
tanned by the city. constantly has over
fifty such inernes. The fact that the
sick population Of this hospital, exclusive
of patients at the free dispensary, aver
ages close to 1000 daily, is evidence that
the interne's day is full of crowded hours.
The patients are of every nationality in
the world, and have. collectively. all the
ills that flesh is heir to. All social
classes come to this house of thousand
diseases. A man whose name is house
hold word for success may be drive n,
craZed from drugs, In between the grim
gates in a private carriage at the same
time that the ambulance hauls in an
unknown hobo, shrieking with delirium
tremens. Both become the concern of
the white-clad inferno.
The typical inferno at Bellevue starts,
say. as a junior in surgery. A large
part of his time in this position is spent
in the laboratory, analyzing samples of
blood or other fluid taken from patients,
or gazing at the interior of various parts
of the human anatomy with the aid of the
X-ray. In addition, in the wards, he
makes daily physical examinations, gives
anaesthetics and works at the operating
tables. He may be called upon, also, in
the course of an Afternoon, to make as
many as twenty dressings for wounds,
each of which may require from five TO
forty minutes of the most deXterouS and
patient work. At odd times the "his-
tories" must be fixed up. for an exhaustive
personal record is kept of every patient.
The inferno must include not only the
personal history of the patient. his habits.
characteristics, past diseases and COM
pleJe diagnosis of his present state, but
his family history as well. There are
scores of thousands of these records stored
away in Bellevue.
Has Less Time Than Servant
To attend to all this work the junior
in surgery begins his day at o'clock,
and. with scarcely break for lunch, is
at his varied tasks until dinner at 6
O'Clock. After dinner he tolls again in
the wards or laboratories until midnight
or later. And even after he has flung
himself down exhausted on his dormitory
bed, his snatches at sleep are likely to
be broken several times each night by
hurry calls to locate a bullet with the
aid of X-rays in the body of would be
suicide, or to set splintered bone. OF
| stop an artery.
The comparative quiet of the routine in
the surgical ward is varied by six weeks
| of service amid the profanity of the
| prison pavilion, the coughing of the tu-
berculosis division. or among the SHREK
| holic wards.
During this first six months service the
| inferno has much less time to himself
than a servant. OF two selected at ran
dom for questioning in Bellevue, one had
| HAD three evenings and one afternoon out
| in six weeks, and another one Sunday
and eight evenings in nine weeks.
| From the surgical word the inferno
| goes to three months of ambulance serv-
ice-"on the bus it is called in the
| hospital-then to three months in the
genealogical ward; next. to six months
| as senior in medicine, or whatever he is
specializing in, and finally six months as
HOUSE" in complete charge of a de-
| partment and on duty all the time.
Patients Not Patient.
| 1t was while on the bus that the in
| terne manages to get some fresh air,
but this period of his existence is prob
ably the most strenuous of all. Bellevue
runs a four-bus system with four ply
sicians constantly on hand. When doing
his twenty-four-hou stunt as first bus
man. the inferno must answer every call
that comes in, and the second bus man re-
spends to summonses that come while the
first bus is out. During his first