Louisiana is getting more general practitioners while the nation as a whole is losing potential GP's to specialty practice.
This picture was drawn here by the president-elect of the American Academy of General Practice, Dr. James D. Murphy of Fort Worth, Tex.
Dr. Murphy praised efforts of Louisiana State university medical school to turn out more GP's, the all-purpose family doctors, as he.prepared to address the 15th annual scientific assembly of the Louisiana Academy of General Practice. Ends Meeting
The academy completed its scientific meeting at the Monte-leone hotel this morning. Some 200 GP's from throughout Louisiana attended the three-day meet. "Louisiana is one of the few states in the nation where a medical school has recognized its responsibility to provide the people of the state with sufficient doctors to give them the right sort of care," Dr. Murphy said.
".The whole thing boils down to a difference of attitude on the part of the deans, the Texan said.
"In many medical schools, the deans pride themselves on the number of researchers and specialists they can produce." Dr. Murphy said Dr. William W. Frye, dean of LSU medical school, stresses the training of doctors ; for the various communities of the state.
He said Tulane medical school may be doing the same thing. "I can't state this for a fact, but I do know what LSU is doing," he added. Try to Persuade
Dr. Murphy said the American Academy of General Practice is trying to persuade medical schools to graduate doctors who have not been directed into specialties before graduation. A Boston pediatrician,who addressed the assembly yesterday said many "peculiar looking" children are winding up in institutions for the mentally retarded when they actually have an unsuspected hearing difficulty.
Prevents Speech
Dr. Sydney S. Gellis said their inability to hear prevents such children from learning to speak. This is mistakenly considered after a time to be mental retardation, he said.
A physician can spot such a youngster at a glance, the Boston child specialist said, because he has "a fish-like mouth, abnormal looking ears and eyes that slant down sharply at the outer corners."
Another group whose hearing is defective, he said, includes children whose eyes are of different color—one brown, one blue—or who have patches of blue scattered through brown
eyes.
Urges Caution
Dr. Gillis urged that doctors spot these children at the earliest age possible.
He said infants as young as four weeks can be given a hearing test with a newly developed aparatus called a,psycho-galvanometer. Given Shock
The child is given a tiny electric shock on one finger- while a buzzing sound is produced. After this is repeated three or four times, the buzzer is sounded without an accompanying shock.
Another electrode attached to the hand measures any increase in sweating in the palm, an infallible sign of stress. If the child's palm perspires more when the buzzer' is sounded but the shock isn't applied, he can hear. Otherwise, no.
Dr. Gellis, professor and chairman of the department of pediatrics at Boston university school of medicine, said the psycho-galvanometer has been in use now for about two years.
PHOTO: DR. FRED SCHWARZ
