DRIVERLESS SURGEONS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2838, 1 August 1916, Page 6

DRIVERLESS SURGEONS

V OPERATING HAND SHAKEN AT TB*G ; WHEEL. Tho calling up of doctors' chauffeurs is causing concern to many distinguished, members of the profession, who at all hours of tho' day and night are called on to rush from one hospital to another to attend wounded soldiers. ; ' If they drive .themselves tho surgeons leave tho steering-wheel with their hands in a condition of tremor, which unfits them for a'critical operation.' The Government was. warned of this danger, lint at least ono life has since been lost through the hand of a brilliant surgeon, shaking at tho critical moment, the re suit of driving his own car. The profession has petitioned tho t tribunals to regard their chauffeurs as in-_ 4 dispensable, but without effect. The military 'authorities tell them to find women. But the womenohave proved unable to work all day and drive again perhaps, between two and four' o'clock in the morning. Moreover, they cannot manage the mechanical work of a breakdown on a. country road. Failing women, tho surgfcns have been gravely told that the "tube" will often bo found convenient, if a taxicab is not within hail. Hut life hangs mors often than not in the balance in the early bours of the morning, when tubes and taxicabs are not available. Tho medical men have made two suggestions—that their chauffeurs should be placed .in the E.A.M.C.. and left in ' their employment, or that tho doctors should have tho services of motor trans-, port drivers. They daro not operate, these distinguished medical men declare, if they must go to the work with their hands unfit.—"Daily Mail."