Doctors Dwindle

Do the armed forces really need more doctors? Not if they would divvy up the doctors they have, says Dr. Frank Howard Lahey. Dr. Lahey, head of Boston's big Lahey Clinic, is chairman of the Procurement and Assignment Service, which recruits physicians for the Army & Navy.

Nevertheless, said Dr. Lahey to a war-decimated meeting of the American College of Surgeons in Philadelphia, more doctors will be recruited. Reason: poor distribution of doctors in the armed forces. At the front, there are too few doctors; in the rear (which includes Army & Navy hospitals in the U.S.), too many.

Dr. Lahey charged that Army & Navy hospitals in the U.S. can hardly keep their personnel busy, while "in civilian hospitals, beds are 'hot,' and there is barely time to change the sheets between one patient and the next."

He foresaw no easing of the civilian doctor shortage: "The doctors left in civilian life are dying off rapidly. Some 3,900 will go this year and you will be lucky to get 1,000 to replace them."

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