OCR Text |
Show MEDICAL RESERVE CORPS. The journal of the American Medical Medi-cal Association of June 1, after printing print-ing extracts from Surgeon General Gorga's letter requesting the co-operation of the association as follows: "It is earnestly desired that the interests in-terests of the civil communities be conserved as far as possible and that no enlistments in the medical reserve corps be made that would work serious ser-ious hardship upon any community by taking from such community physicians who are needed for Its care. "To this end the department desires de-sires the closest co-operation of the association, believing that through its organization and its allies, the additional increment to the medical reserve corps can be most satisfactorily satisfac-torily obtained without in any way depriving any community of physicians physi-cians whose services are necessary to its welfare, etc. Prints an article which is of Interest Inter-est to every community. It says: "The same principle which requires each community to furnish its quota of men for the army should also apply ap-ply in securing physicians for the. medical reserve corps. And to determine de-termine to what extent each state an' community had met this responsibility, responsibil-ity, the association instructed its war committee to make as complete a survey as possible, and the war committee believes that this information informa-tion should be given to physicians i and ordered it published in the Journal. Jour-nal. The report of this committee makes it possible at a glance to determine de-termine the important facts regarding regard-ing each county in the United States. For each county, It shows the area, population, number of physicians, number under 45, under 55, number of square miles to the physician, the number of inhabitants to the physician, physi-cian, and the number in the service. As an illustration, take Beaver county. coun-ty. Area, 2660 square miles; per physician, 444; population 5423; population per physician 920; number num-ber of physicians, 6; number of women wo-men physicians, none; number under 45, 3; number under 66, 6. Phy-cians Phy-cians who are members of the American Amer-ican Medical Association, 1; physicians physi-cians in medical reserve corps, none. The same data is given for every county in the United States. In New York City there is one physician for every one-hundredth of a square mile and in Chicago one for every two-hundredth of a square mile, while in Eureka county, Nevada, Neva-da, one physician must attend to the population of 4157 square miles, and in Mono county, California, one must cover 3030 square miles. It is estimated es-timated that the reserve corps will need 30,000 additional physicians during tho present year. The total to-tal number of physicians in the U. S. is 146,500, hence this means that one out of every five physicians must go. To supply this one out of every five, if rightly distributed, ought not to be a severe strain upon the profession. pro-fession. There are many localities which can not spare any. and on the other hand there are those communities com-munities which could easily spare two out of every five, especially ir the large cities. With the state and county organizations co-operating, there is little doubt but that each state will be able to fill its quota without serious hardship on either the population or the individual individ-ual members of the medical profession. |