Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 225, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 October 1917 — Don’t Send Medical Students to the War [ARTICLE]

Don’t Send Medical Students to the War

By Dr. Henry A. Christian

Thegovernment must Hot send the nation s med ical students to war as ordinary soldiers—or in any capacity, for that matter. France and England now realize their mistake of two and three years ago in taking the students from schools and putting them into the armies. The medical students of today are the physicians of the future. As the students are reduced in number, so will the supply of physicians shrink. War demands many medical men. Seven to ten doctors per 1,000 soldiers is stated as the requirement of our army. With an army in the field no fewer medical men are needed at home, for the soldier as the healthy young man in the community makes but little demand for medical service so long as het is a civilian. Hence the present would seem a poor time to reduce the supply of physicians. The medieal student following graduation spends one or two years BP an interne or house officer in the hospitals of the country, barge hospitals must have house officers or close their doork Already men for such positions are scarce, owing to the demands made by the war and navy department for such men. If the supply is further reduced by drafting medical students, hospitals must curtail their work and treat fewer patients in the near future. Furthermore medical students, while still undergraduates, as part of their medical instruction, do much work in the hospitals under the supervision of the house officers and their teachert on the visiting staff. To decrease by draft the number of medical students would hamper directly hospital work by decreasing the'number of available student assistants and this would be to hospitals. *