Letter to the managers of the Glasgow Royal Infirmary on certain proposed alterations on the medical organization of the Institution ... February, 1870.

  • Fleming, John Gibson.
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letter to the managers of the Glasgow Royal Infirmary on certain proposed alterations on the medical organization of the Institution ... February, 1870. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    to ensure what they all desire, interesting cases; while, as a rule, if not lecturing, they will be able in an hour to do ample Justice to the sick committed to their charge; and this is as long a time as can reasonably be required from an ordinary medical attendant for duty in the Hospital. A much longer time must daily be devoted to Hospital work by Clinical teachers, and Surgeons on operating days. These remarks refer only to duties within the Hospital: every zealous and painstaking medical officer will, as a matter of course, devote much time at home to considering and taking notes of the cases of the patients under his care. The smallest number of cases generally occur in the autumnal months, the period of the year when the medical attendants are anxious for recreation, when the students as a body are absent, and when systematic instruction is not given. During these months, one Physician or Surgeon might, for a few weeks at a time, take charge of the wards of a colleague as well as of his own. In appending to this proposal the condition that the last elected Physician and Surgeon should not receive any salary, I was guided by a former rule of the In- stitution in which a similar regulation obtained, and by the opinion that the Managers might hesitate to sanction any additional expense in the shape of medical salaries. The feeling, however, which seemed to pre- vail at the opening discussion on this subject, I am glad to say, left a different impression on my mind. The non-medical Managers, with that liberality which for some years has characterised their procedure on all questions where medical or scientific interests are concerned, indicated that if an additional number of attendants would be for the interests of the Institution, the additional honorarium required need not stand in the way. I am therefore quite ready to withdraw this part of the proposal; in fact, I regret having made it. The fourth proposal is, that the hour of visit shall be two o'clock The present hour is half-past eight in the morning. My reasons for proposing the change are as follows :—The visit at the early hour