Document text
STATE
NAM OF WORKER
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
Forms to be Filled out for Each Interview
FORMA
Circumstances of Interview
Few York
Joseph Voce1
]larch 28, 1039
In the Hospital
1. Date and timc of Interview
:arch 28, 1039 5 o'clock. P.17.
2. Place of interview
Kircs County Hospital
3. Name and address of informant
Resident Physician
(Request made not to use name.)
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in
touch with informant.
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, for any of the forms, each
bearing the proper heading and the number to which the material refers.)
STATE
NAIVE OF WORKER
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
FORM C
Text of Interview (Unedited)
liew York
Joseph Vogel
Yarch 28, 1939
In the Hospital
GETTECO USED TO SICK PEOPLE
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
Some people have the impression that we who work in a hospital
get a distorted view of life. You know how the visitor feels when he comes
to the hospital; he's astonished at finding so many sick people around him;
he never stopped to thirk there is so much sickness in the world. That
leads him to thihk that ;perhaps we doctors are also astonished, when we
so out of the hospital, at finding so many healthy people al;:put. The
truth is we don't think about it. We no more lose our sense of proportion
than do members of other professions. For example, the averase person
may think that an undertaker has a morbid outlook on life. As a matter of
fact the undertaker, no less than the shoe salesman, will enjoy his same
of bridge in the evening, lau7h at the same jokes, and act like any
ordinary Jerson when he gets throwth with the day's work.
However, you mi;,!:ht make this distinction. The doctor who is
new to his job naburally doesn't take it quite so casually. The interne,
when he rides the subway, is likely to exandne faces closely and decide
what ails this one and that one. He is likely, when he goes to bed at
night, to worry about his cases, to analyze them again ---and he hopes to
effect miraculous cures. There again the sane atbitude would apply to
anyone new to his job, when everything makes a much stronger impression on
the mind.
'FOCUS POC1JS E
There's plenty hocus DOC= in our profession. Some of it
serves a good purpose. That's what's known as the bedside manner. It
serves a psychological -purpose. There's a visiting doctor comes to the
hospital who knom as little about medicine as...we all think he's dumb.
But you should see the manners he outs on. You would think he was the
country's greatest doctor. He Toes up to a patient, takes her hand and
pats it, and says, "Tine: You're improving wonderfully! You look fine
to
And sure enough you can see the patient actually improving.
The temperature goes down, color comes into the cheeks, the eyes shine.
There's an actual improvement.
Now every doctor can't do that. That's why some women go around
praising their doctors, who may be terrible, to the skies, and other women
go around cursing their doctors, who may be very good, to hell.
There's other kinds of hocus pocus which doesn't serve any good
purpose. Doctors aren't supposed to advertise, but some of them get lots
of publicity by other ways. There's the doctor who not Lindbergh to make
a mechanical heart.. Now any glassblower could make him a glass heart
according to directions, but of course when you collaborate with Lindbergh
you get front-page publicity. Then there are doctors who make sensational
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statements, as, for instance, you can't tell a woman's health by looking
at her because women paint their cheeks and fingernails. Now., any doctor
knows that all you have to do is examine a woman's eyes, by pulling down
the skin on the bottom of the eye, and you can get as good an idea of her
blood condition as from the color of cheeks and fingernails.
Medicine lends itself more easily to quackery than other pro-
fessions. Announce the discovery of a new style of shoe and very few people
will get excited about it. But announce the discovery of a new style of
shoe that will cure weak ankles, straighten out the toes, remove bunions,
and prolong the span of life, and the excitement will amount almost to
panic.
VISITIrG HOURS
Visitin hours at the hospital may look like a holiday to some
people, but we doctors hate it. 'he nurses hate it. A lot of the patients
hate it too. Visitors crowd around the beds, they get the patients excited,
they get in everybody's way, and what's the result? The patient is always
worse for it. Their temperature goes up from one to three degrees. It's
not so good for the health. But what can you do? Try telling a visitor
that his visit instead of beirg a blessin7 to the patient is doing harm,
and you'll get the hair torn out of your head.