a Medical Corps

[Cobalt-60]

Everyone agrees, big time war or disaster leaves us short of doctors and dentists.
Indeed, an artificial scarcity of doctors is maintained to keep their prices out of sight.
It pays for the military to keep an apparently disproportionate number of doctors and dentists on hand.
I suggest that they keep in practice by making their services available to Americans who otherwise would receive no health care.
Call it socialized medicine if you like. I call it keeping our Army Doctors busy until we need them in the field.
There would have to be a deal of course, say 6 or 8 years service in exchange for their education.
If the regular medical community didn't care to provide training, I'm sure our medical instructor and facility needs could be Outsourced until we had enough of our own instructors.
Finally, eventually, as these doctors entered civilian practice, they could provide a little price relief for a hard pressed American population.

[acmejack]

1. There used to be a public health service

Apparently there still is, but they used to have clinics & actually provide services. Must have come too close to SOCIALIZED medicine...

http://www.usphs.gov/

[izzie]

3. Did the public service do all those TB test? I think so.

It may have been the state of Maine but Maine is not to rich so I think it was public service. Some one came and just did these things when I was in grade school plus they check the kids over and looked at teeth and eyes. Since I was in grade school 1939 until HS it is hard to recall. They sure looked for lice and that is hard to forget.

[acmejack]

4. They wore uniforms just like the Navy.

In fact the Surgeon General wears the Uniform that the PHS wears. I saw them in Tampa, we used them there once. I would bet they were the people who provided that service to you in Maine. I had some friends from Maine and I have heard that it was was pretty hard if you were in the agrarian economy.

[izzie]

5. It is too long ago for me to re-call uniforms.

I do re-call being sent to a city for X-rays as I always came out wrong om the TB test. I did not have it just tested bad at the start test. It may have been a local thing on the other tests and done by local health care as I came from the better off places in Maine money wise. In those days the school money was not sent around the state to low income towns so one school district was far better off then others. I lived about 12 miles from Kennebunkport. These towns were not rich in the depression but they had Summer people that helped, all those large homes to tax, and in my town a major work pace was the federal govt. job. The North part of Maine has always been poor and is not much better off now. York County is pretty rich as Maine goes. I am sure it was the only care some of these kids got. My family was fairly well off so we had care that we could pay for. I always tell the story of just 3 of use that went to a dentist and we got a lot of kidding about it. Kids had lots of rotten teeth when I grew up.

[muesa]

6. Updates on USPHS

1. They used to have a "Reserve" like the military - but it has been converted ito the , and picks up "civilians" (like the Coast Guard Auxiliary and the Civil Air patrol and Volunteer Fire Departments).

2. USPHS Commissioned Officers work in prisons, Indian Reservations, NIH, Food & Drug Administration, CDC, Coast Guard, Peace Corps, Embassies, etc.

3. I don't know if they work in VA Hospitals -- the father and the uncle of an old girl friend (40 years ago?) were VA docs who were also in the USPHS - don't know what their official status was.

[izzie]

2. I think some care is open to low income under the service.

Been years since I came under tri-care but I seem to re-call that low income could also use it.