What duty has the press to keep the public informed of medical advances?

This knotty question quite often causes misunderstanding among doctors, medical research workers and journalists. A man of caution, the sincere researcher wants to

check & recheck his finding for

years before he lets anybody know about it. He has often seen sensational reporting cause people to suffer false hopes. All in all, his life is easier if he avoids the outside world and its press.

Some professional associations reinforce this tendency by failing to understand the difference between publicity-seeking or advertising and the release of valuable medical information. If it weren't for the doctors who take a broader view of the profession's responsibilities, we would be unable to report on much of the fine work being done in medical research.

Recently Mrs. James G. Jones of Indianapolis came in to give us striking evidence of how doctors and journalists can work together to do their respective jobs. One night last November Mrs. Jones lay in bed reading TIME. Beyond the night table in the other bed was her husband, a 53-year-old Episcopal priest who had been bedridden for three years as the result of five coronary attacks. "We were just waiting for the next attack to kill my husband," she remembers. In the Medicine section she saw a story about an operation by which New York's Dr. Samuel A. Thompson had been able to increase the blood supply to the heart muscle "starved" by coronary artery disease. She passed the folded magazine over to her husband. As they both reread the story several times, hope began to dawn.

They traced Dr. Thompson's address through ex-Patient Abell Bernstein, a Colorado manufacturer whose recovery had been reported in the story. Before the ambulance took the priest to the New York train in March, the couple sent many letters to friends, asked for "fervent prayers." Her husband's case was so critical that Mrs. Jones feared that Dr. Thompson would refuse to operate--because he would not want to spoil his good record. "But life is more important to Dr. Thompson than statistics," she says. After 19 days of observation, Father Jones underwent the ticklish operation. Four weeks later he was back home in Indiana, able to walk up & down stairs and stroll outdoors. He hopes, in six months, to be back in active ministry.

This case is typical of what happened to many other coronary sufferers who read the same story. Ex-Patient Bernstein got so many requests for information that he had to draft a form letter in reply, reporting Dr. Thompson's procedure and address. Letters both urgent and hopeful began to arrive at Dr. Thompson's from 23 states and six foreign countries.

Out in the Fiji Islands, George Varat, an industrial molder, did not take time to write a letter. He simply caught the next boat to the U.S., appeared unannounced at Dr. Thompson's office. He is now on the road to recovery.

The story of Dr.

Thompson's operation appeared in the Nov. 13 is sue, alongside the story of the Sault Ste. Marie (Ontario) battle against virulent ringworm infections. As I reported four months ago, that story brought 250 offers of volunteer help to the town, one of which produced the most effective treatment for the Soo's variety of ringworm, helped check the itchy epidemic.

Not every issue of the Medicine section brings such useful stories to so many people. But each week our editors, aided by doctors and other medical scientists, try to tell, quietly and accurately, the news of significant advances in the treatment of human ailments.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.