Conference of Officers in Charge of Government Hospitals Serving Veterans of the World War
History
Conference of Officers in Charge of Government Hospitals Serving Veterans of the World War
Medicine, Military; Military hospitals; World War, 1914-1918 -- Veterans -- Medical care -- United States
GEN. SAWYER: “This seems to me to be on opportunity to say a thing or to
which have been in my mind that I wish to express now. First, this
present administration has as one of its ambitions the best Public
Health Service in the world. I want you to know that, in your
engagements here, trying as they are, behind you is a determination to
help to develop an ideal Public Health Service, and every man who is
engaged in the service of the Public Health of the United States should
feel that he is engaged in the greatest service that can be rendered to
his country.
For myself, I have a great ambition that somewhere there should be
established a post-graduate training department to which the members of
the Public Health Service of the United states could come for
post-graduate training. We want to be the highest type of doctors that
are to be found anywhere, and so today we have in contemplation the
establishment of a post-graduate training school in the city of
Washington, to which you can come to provide yourselves and equip
yourselves with all the new and better things that from time to time
must develop.”
SURGEON DEDMAN: stated that he felt that Dr. Lavinder’s paper was too
important to pass up without a comment or two; that one thing he was
struck with was the personal contact to be made with the patients
themselves. He said he believed this was a very important matter, as the
services of a doctor are absolutely worthless until he has gained the
patient’s confidence. He felt that the doctor should be looked upon just
as the family physician at home. He stated further that when he first
entered the work he made the following hospital rules: 1—Kindness,
2—Cheerfulness, and, 3—Duty. Said that the doctors should inject the
feeling of friendship into the minds of the men as much as possible. He
stated that there ought to be a system of uniform hospital regulations,
that some hospital rules are not so drastic as those of other hospitals,
and that he believed there should be a uniform regulation so that the
disciplinary regulations would be the same in one hospital as in
another.
ASST. SURGEON. L. L. WILLIAMS: stated that in reference to uniform
disciplinary regulations the character of the patients, the location of
the institutions and the construction of the premises are all factors
that affect the privileges to be given the patients. Believed there
could be no highly organized uniformity of regulations.
In regard to specialized attention, the hospital should be prepared to
furnish any sort of special care possible. He stated further that he
believed that the specialized patient in a general hospital is better
off than if in a special hospital, but that if he had a son who had a
special ailment he would much prefer him in a hospital which had upon
its staff men in active practice of the kind he was going to need.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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