New Broom

For hospitalized veterans, things were looking up last week. Rotund, hard-working Major General Paul R. Hawley, onetime Chief Surgeon of the ETO, began work as the Veterans' Administration's medical boss.

Dr. Hawley found things in pretty much the mess that VA critics have described: VA hospitals were overcrowded,* understaffed and mired down in politics. Said he: "It was a mighty sick thing we took over, and there aren't going to be any miracles."

But in a spot where any action is something of a miracle, General Hawley has begun to act. He has decided on some stopgaps and some long-term plans.

First, he knows that there are not going to be enough doctors for a long while (of a needed 3,800 there are now 2,300, of whom 1,700 can soon get out on the Army point system). So he has asked the Army & Navy to continue in the medical business for a couple of years: i.e., go on taking care of patients who would normally be turned over to the VA.

To attract the 7,000 good doctors the VA needs for the next dozen years, General Hawley proposes to use the hospitals near teaching institutions (in Chicago, Boston, New York, etc.) as nuclei where experts can train younger fry. He thinks the VA must come to hiring professors and other experts on a part-time basis--since they could never be hired full-time at VA prices. He proposes a Medical Corps for the VA (instead of the present Civil Service), to make hiring & firing easy.

Hawley's hardest job, he thinks, will be to sell the idea that the hospitals should be near medical centers: "Congress and the country are going to have to make up their mind whether they want poor medical service close to home or good medical service at some distance from home."

* Typical is the hospital in New York's Bronx with 1,850 patients and 115 doctors. Half the doctors expect Army discharges soon. So do a good many enlisted men assigned to hospital chores. The hospital needs 300 more beds right now, and some patients are housed in a nearby naval hospital.

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