Annual report of the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital : 1913/14.

  • Peter Bent Brigham Hospital.
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report of the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital : 1913/14. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    54/160 (page 46)
    ical staff and with an equal number of beds must become still more so, if with the inevitable growth of the clinic its members are to become productive rather than routine workers; for even at present it is almost impossible to find uninterrupted time for quiet investigation. This is largely due to the time-consuming nature of surgical thera¬ peutics, for thorough preliminary study must necessarily be accorded to each patient whether in the medical or surgical wards, and yet on the one hand it means an order for treatment often administered by a nurse, whereas in surgery it may mean a fatiguing operation of some hours’ duration consuming the time of three or four members of the staff. This is particularly true of the cases requiring neurological study, and I cannot commend too highly the unflagging industry of the three successive assistant residents who have so lightened my labors in this arduous work that it has been possible to attend to the necessary duties connected with the school. Growth of Service. Our first patient, a woman with varicose veins of the leg, entered the Hospital on January 27, 1913. In the twenty-four succeeding months to January 1, 1915, there were 2284 admissions, the aver¬ age of the last three months being about 150 patients a month, which is approaching the present limit of our 110 beds. With an average hospital residence of 18 days per patient, one bed can care for 20 patients a year, and on this basis we can hardly expect with our present facilities more than 2200 patients annually, or about 180 a month. This, however, when sufficiently controlled provides abundant and varied teaching material. During the first several months our accommodations were confined to 15 beds on a single floor of the first com¬ pleted ward where a temporary operating room was equipped; and it was not until a year later that the re¬ maining wards were ready for occupancy. That our cli¬ entele has grown as rapidly as it has reflects great credit