The children's hospital, the medical school and the public / by L. Emmett Holt.
- Luther Emmett Holt
- Date:
- [1913]
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The children's hospital, the medical school and the public / by L. Emmett Holt. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![facilities given to specialists for study and investigation, and [89] at the same time afford to students, practitioners and nurses opportunities for instruction and experience. It is often urged that wards for infants and children iu general hospitals are to be preferred to separate hospitals for this group of patients. Such wards have, it is true, been a part of the organization of the larger hospitals of most of our cities for the past fifteen or twenty years. But how has this worked? In many institutions the beds have been largely or exclusively given over to the care of orthopedic or other surgical cases. Where medical beds existed they have usually been made a part of the general medical service of the hospital, and the attending physicians who served in rotation a few months at a time, as a rule, gave scant attention to the needs of the special service. Equally unsatisfactory has been the attention given by the resident medical staff, when each member was given in turn two or three months in charge of this ward that he might gain some experience with children. The practical result of such an organization and administra- tion has been that the service, especially as regards the infants, went by default, and very little was accomplished in advanc- ing the knowledge of the diseases of children. With respect to oiganization there has been in some places an improvement by the appointment of a special attending physician to these wards. This is a practice which should invariably be followed. Yet in spite of this change I have personally no hesitation in pronouncing in favor of the separate hospital. The children’s service in the general hospitals is in nearly all cases too small to admit of a proper classification and separation of patients. The only important argument which I think can be advanced in favor of wards in general hospitals is that of economy. A large institution can certainlv be operated at a lower per capita cost than a small one, and the children’s hospital must not be too large. That such a service as usually operated affords, a valuable experience to the resident medical start is open to serious question. The construction, the equipment, the organization, and the operation of a hospital for young children are quite differ- [90] ent from those needed in hospitals for adults These grow out](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22447957_0007.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
