Medicine: Reconversion

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During the war, there was a shortage of interns, and New York City hospitals began sending attendants to ride the ambulances. The attendants were given a six-week course in first aid and told to do their best. After the war, there was still a shortage of interns; besides, a survey showed that 7% of all ambulance calls were "unnecessary"; 3% of the patients were D.O.A. ("dead on arrival"); occasionally, ambulances merely acted as taxis.

One day last week a woman was found unconscious in a hotel room, with an empty box of sleeping pills beside her. She was pronounced "apparently dead" by an ambulance attendant. After the attendant had gone, a policeman noticed perspiration on the "dead" woman's brow, gave her artificial respiration and kept her alive. At week's end her condition was "fair and improved." All 13 of New York City's municipal hospitals decided to send interns, rather than attendants, on ambulance calls.