Page:LewisMeriam-TheProblemOfIndianAdministration.djvu/283

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Problem of Indian Administration
  1. staff who prove unable to meet these standards should be allowed to resign. The practice of transferring a physician who has failed at his station will be rendered unnecessary if a sufficient number of well qualified candidates can be secured.

    Definite steps should be taken to afford the existing personnel an opportunity to improve their work and to fit themselves to meet higher standards. They should be expected to register in the state where they practice, to become members of the state and local medical societies, and, insofar as possible, to attend meetings. From time to time they should be sent to local and in some cases national meetings and to district conferences of Indian Service physicians. Special arrangements should be made to have them visit stations where particularly good work is being done either generally or in some special field such as trachoma or tuberculosis. Leave of absence for special study and advancement should be granted whenever possible.

    Both the salaries and the living and working conditions should be raised so that the physician can maintain a reasonable standard of professional life. His house should be the equal of that of a moderately successful country doctor both in professional equipment and in domestic furniture. Unless the government itself provides the domestic furniture, the doctor should be given an adequate allowance for meeting costs of moving when he is transferred from one station to another.

    The Service should require all physicians to comply with reasonable minimum standards in their practice. They should be required to keep the essential records and to submit proper reports, a matter which will be considered in detail under the practice of preventive medicine.[1] The indiscriminate doling out of medicine should be stopped and examination, diagnosis and complete case records should be required. The agency physicians should make greater effort to encourage the Indian women to have physicians in attendance at child-birth. Although the existing evidence suggests that either men or women physicians who show real interest can achieve equally good results, it is suggested that an experiment be tried in detailing well trained women physicians to some of the more primitive tribes.

  1. ↑ See pages 266 to 268.
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