Confederate Doctors Air Policy Gripes

              8-A Friday, Nov. 10, 1972
Confederate Doctors Air Policy Gripes
By Margaret Martin
'limes Medical Writer
The house staff of Confederate
Memorial Medical Center has
questioned several new hospital
policies, according to a report to
he directors last night.
Dr. Walter Ledet, chief ad-niiiistrative
resident, represent-d
the house staff, which is
composed of interns and resi-dents.
Two major gripes were a
ecent ruling which permits
LSU Medical School senior
tudents to check books out of
he Confederate library, and
losing of a small waiting room
discourage segregation.
But the house staff also
equested that the ninth floor be
losed to everyone but residents
nd interns and their invited
uests and that the lines in the
octors' cafeteria be reduced so
at sufgery r e s i d e n t s with
ases would not have to wait 10
r 15 minutes to eat.
Ledet said the house staff
pposes a new policy which
could let medical s t u d e n t s
heck books out of the library.
he books, he said should be
vailable to residtents and in-rns
24 hours a day so they
ould go by and get the books
a a moment's notice.
biding with him was Confeder-te
medical director, Dr. Rod
I. Yeager, who said he felt it
'as very important to have the
brary available 24 hours a day,
because this is a teaching
stitution for physicians . . .
nd it is best to leave the
brary available to the house
caff. . ."
But Board Chairman Harold
C. Quinn reminded Ledet that
ny doctor on the visiting staff
- which includes most of the
hysicians in the Shreveport-
;pssier City area — are eligible
check books out, as can
esidents and; interns them-elves.
He also pointed out that the
urgery department has its own
brary, and he offered to get
lore books for either library,
r that certain books be restrict-d.
"Books are wonderful," said]
he chairman. "I am not for j
ationing them."
But Ledet argued that medi-cal
students had basic texts
"and there is no reason for
them to have to remove our
books."
Quinn said he didn't under-stand!
the difference in some 300
town doctors and the residents
and interns checking the books
out and leaving out 32 medical
students.
"I t 's be ing arbitrary," he
added.
"It's a matter of usage,"
Ledet answered ". . . we use
the book in the library and we
want them to be there wnen we
want to use them."
Acting Director Robert Hall
suggested that the Confederate
officials talk to LSU Medical;
School librarian Mayo Drake
about the possibility of expand-ing
the medical scnool library s
collection at Confederate. The
present medical school library
is at the Veterans Administra-tion
hospital, but many ot the
students spend most of their
time at Conieaerate.
The matter was turned over
to the executive committee.
Why, Ledet asked, was the
small waiting room closed,
leaving only the large waning
Ralph Hall explained that it
was closed at the request of the
(U.S. Department of H e a l t h ,
Education and Welfare, Tradi-tionally
whites have used the
small room and blacks the
large, and the only way to break
the habit was to chain off one
section, he said.
But, Hall said, the small room
will be used as an overflow
area. (The chain went up for the
first time yesterday and was
down — although the large
room was not crowded — at 9
p.m. last night. Robert Hall said
that the chain would go back up
immediately.)
But Ledet pressed the issue,
saying no one had given him a
reason for closing it, and asking
if Confederate was bound by the
HEW recommendations, and
what would happen if they
weren't followed.
No Alternative
Yeager put it simply: "They
left us no alternative. We use a
large amount of HEW funds. If
we oton't follow the guidelines,
we will lose the funds. What is
important — putting up a chain
or losing quite a bit of impor-tant
money?"
"Do we have something in
writing?" asked Dr. W. J. Hill
Jr.
Robert Hall read from the
HEW report ". . .the smaller
main waiting room (white)
should be kept closed and used
on an o v e r f l o w basis only,
Appropriate signs to this effect|
j should be posted."
"They insist on this," he
commented.
Quinn suggested that possibly
the house staff could come up
with another suggestion that
would cut out segregation —
and at the same time work.
In other action, Quinn said he
was passing on a request that
Confederate doctors introduce
themselves before examining a
patient.
"Okay?" Q u i n n addressed
Ledet. "Do you think that could
be worked out?" Ledet nodded.
Wilbur Purvis, board member
from Mansfield, said he had had
a complaint that when patients
die in the admitting room,
admitting roam personnel notify
certain funeral homes before
the family.
The matter was turned over
to Robert Hall.
The board also said yes to
publication of a patient hand-book,
a n d updating t h e em-ployee's
handbook.