The Newark Advocate from Newark, Ohio • 3

The doctor and the bank book with the $5 deposits de aLl Physicians seldom get good publicity. They do not understand that making an accurate diagnosis in a case, or prescribing the treatment indicated, does not make news. It is only when a doctor makes a big mistake, or is sued for malpractice, that his name makes the newspapers. It is an editorial rule of thumb that good news is not news. The American Medical Association, which pontificates about medical ethics, and maintains a lobby which exhales its hot antiseptic breath down the necks of the Congress, cannot equate its attitude with its actions.

I knew an old G.P. who was retiring after 60 years of practice. I sat with him in a small second floor office, replete with polished floor, a cabinet full of shiny instruments, while he covered a small enamel stool in a long white coat. He told me how he started practice with a horse and a rig and a medical bag. The horse cost $40; the carriage $80; the bag was a gift from his parents.

He served the tenementhouse poor and often retrieved his fee from a family icebox. He lived on spaghetti and cheese and bread for a few years. After the story was published, four or five physicians who were friends phoned. "What did you write the story about that old man for?" they asked collectively. "He can't use the publicity.

I can." Each of them was a highly ethical physician from the New York area. Recently, I renewed my acquaintance with surgeons and physicians. A spinal disk had to be trimmed out. The work was excellent; perfection itself. The care, the treatment, the nurses were of the highest.

So is the bill, which will come to a little more than $3,000. Opinion Page Remarks that hurt "Yeah, that was quite an experience, all right, but I think I can tell you about one that happened to me that'll top it and mine has the further advantage of being a true story." "I like you a lot, Bertram, but not in that way." "I hope you're not one of those girls, who expect a guy to propose to them the first time he puts his arm around them." season of sitting on the bench won't hurt you, son. The trouble with you right now, kid, is that you got a million dollar body but only a 10 cent brain." "Hullo, Short. When are you ever going to start to grow up?" "Well, speaking frankly, Fred the reason you haven't got one in the last 10 years is that they are given only for merit." "Did you ever stop to think that maybe the only one to blame is yourself?" "I suppose that sooner or later you'll want to know who put that dent in the fender of our new car. Well, let me tell you--.

"I know that you and Mom have done a lot for me, Dad, but I also know of other parents who have done a lot more for their kids." I do not complain. I can pay it. But 1 wonder what happens to a person earning $2 an hour who needs surgery, How about the several millions of Americans who are on relief? My father, who never earned more than $5,000 a year in his life, may be the only man in America who made a profit every time he was hospitalized. He had so many medical and surgical policies that, when he. had his gall bladder removed (age 70) and an ulcer operation (age 83), he filled out all the insurance forms himself and come out with a minimum of $400 to $500 in addition to the best of treatment.

Medicine, like law and engineering, has its philanthropic practitioners as well as its crooks. Many physicians and surgeons have charity cases and free clinic work which is never publicized. This proves that good guys never give a profession a good name. I knew an elderly doctor who lived near Red Bank, New Jersey. He was semi retired.

He picked his spots. One day an "The trouble with you, Henry, is that you let anybody and everybody use you as a doormat. Don't you ever get tired of having other people wipe their shoes off on you?" "You've got a face that only a mother could love and she'd have to be pretty near sighted." "Just sitting around feeling sorry for yourself isn't going to make the situation any better." "To tell you the truth, doctor, I didn't notice any improvement until I threw away those last pills you told me to take. Maybe instead of helping my condition they were what was causing "That was a nice column you wrote last week, Boyle. Who'd you steal the idea from?" Wednesday, July 12, 1972 The Newark Advocate And American Tribune 4 Frank W.

Spencer, Publisher Published daily except Sunday by The Advocate Printing Company, 25 W. Main Newark, Ohio, 43055. Advocate established 1820. American Tribune 1826. Entered as second-class matter March 19, 1882, at Newark, Ohio, Post Office under act of March 4, 1879.

The Advocate is a member of The Associated Press. Subscription rates: $2.60 Monthly by newspaperboy delivery; Mall: $20 a year in Licking County, available only in areas not served by newspaperboys; in a year; outside Ohio- contact the circulation department for. your zone rate. Special military rates outside Ohio. emergency walked in his front door.

An hysterical woman half carried a 12 year old boy who held his hands out as though he was bearing an invisible gift. He tried hard not to sob, but he lost. The boy had been making a small radio set. He had a pot of hot lead and some wires. The pot tilted and the lead sealed both of his hands.

The doctor examined the curled up fingers, the skin and flesh flaking off. The old doctor said it was a hospital case. The woman said it wasn't. He did his best, including dressings like boxing gloves. "His hands are badly damaged," the doctor said.

"Some of the tendons appear to have atrophied already. I don't know whether the full function of his hands will ever be restored. But I'll try." "How much will it cost?" the woman snapped. "Is cost important?" the doctor said. "It sure is," she said.

"I'm a widow. I support him." The old man said softly: "Would five dollars a visit be too much?" "It would," she said angrily, "but I'll pay it." The boy and the old man became friends over the weeks and months. The houngster said that if he ever got the use of his. hands back, he would study to become a doctor. In the second year, much of the work involved home therapy and exercise.

The boy had hands and fingers that would work, but he had skin of three shades. The doctor ordered the boy to try wood carving as a therapeutic hobby. The mother told the doctor that her son would have been well long ago if he hadn't been so hungry for her weekly $5. On the final visit, the boy walked into the office with his hands out, as though he was bearing a gift. He was.

It was a two masted, fully rigged schooner. The old doctor accepted it gravely. Then he gave a small book to the boy. It was filled with $5 bank deposits in the boy's name. The total was close to $500.

"This is yours," he said to the youngster, "just in case you still want to' study medicine." The the 1972. ELECTION Hal always got over NEW YORK (AP) Remarks that leave scars: "Hi, Fatso." "Dear John, All I can say is that I just tired of waiting and you were there but he was here." "Mother, please try to act your age." Quips quotes The best reason psychologically and socially for supporting Women's Liberation is that. if it is successful. women would no longer have to compete by imitating male aggressiveness, but could remain feminine i in temperament while sharing duties. functions and rewards with their male counterparts.

(As things stand now. only the women who act most like men get ahead. which makes the whole situation abrasive.) General John D. Lavelle's private war with North Vietnam has justifiably touched off quite a stir. Lavelle, it will be recalled, was Commanding General of the 7th Air Force and apparently decided to use the ambiguity of "protective reaction" as a justification for some preemptive strikes against North Vietnamese military installations.

He had the records of these strikes doctored in such a fashion that they indicated up 400T IF 'MR. FISCHER SEEMS 1972 L. A. TIMES SYNDICATE "Excuse me, sir but would you kindly direct me to your trophy room?" Lavelle's private war creates a stir compliance with the rules of engagement. However, because the President subsequently authorized wider bombing, the chances are that many people will write off the Lavelle incident on the ground that he was premature but sensible.

Actually the Lavelle initiative is symptomatic of a far more basic problem than simple battlefield improvisation. Leaving aside the Strangelove scenarios which have local commanders joyously firing off Minutemen, what occurred was a complete failure of the command structure that should concern all of us. I was far more than a breakdown in civilian control over the military; it was a breakdown in military control over the military. Not since Abraham Lincoln put U.S. Grant in command of the Union armies have we seen such a shambles as the command structure of the Vietnamese War.

Who is theoretically the top American official in the Republic of Vietnam? The Chief of Mission, Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker. What was the official function of General William Westmoreland and, later, General Creighton Abrams? They were the ambassador's subordinates in charge of the Military Assistance Command (MACV). That is, in theory, these four star generals had exactly the same status as, say, the colonel who is in charge of an American Military Assistance group in some Latin American nation. For openers, then, the commanding WORLD CHESS LooT CHAMPIONSHIP ICELAND REYKJAVIK, TO BE READY NOW SHALL WE COMMENCE, MR. general, MACV, worked for the ambassador, just like the local director of the Agency for International Development or the local head of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Then came the war and half a million American troops Army, Air Force, and Marines, plus the assets of the Seventh Fleet in the Gulf of Tonkin. Now who was in charge? Well, if you can believe it, the ambassador. At this point General of the Army George C. Marshall must have been spinning in his grave. Vietnam was never made into a military theater of command with the highly structured lines of control that existed in World War II (and even then there were problems; George Patton, for instance, had a do it yourself view of strategy).

Nor were our ambassadors, either by character or conviction, willing to take on the job of proconsul. Which bring us to General Lavelle and the 7th Air Force. Who was Lavelle's boss? In one capacity, he worked for Abrams; in another, for the Commander in Chief, U.S. Forces in the Pacific (CINCPAC) an admiral in Hawaii; in still a third, for the Chief of Staff of the Air Force in Washington. The same sort of command chaos permeated all the services.

Indeed, if one looked at the chart, he sometimes wondered how anything ever got accomplished. But conversely, such a labyrinth is perfectly designed for a general who wants to go into business for himself. In political terms, it is a classic case of hardening of the categories. Even though the character of the war radically changed between 1963 66, the fiction was maintained that we were merely providing "military assistance." Thus we fell between two stools: there was no commander to run the show; there was no ambassador willing or able to exercise his theoretical responsibilities. I have often thought in this context that perhaps President Johnson's greatest error was in not accepting Robert F.

Kennedy's offer to go to Saigon as ambassador. With Bobby at the head of the table there would have been no ambiguities in the command structure. Letters to the Editor The Advocate welcomes brief letters from its readers on any subject in the public interest. Letters exceeding 300 words will be edited to fit. Writers' names and addresses will be published with Hospital 'private'? By CARL R.

MCCLAIN, 240 E. Main St. This is in regard to the June 30 issue of The Advocate. I do not know Mr. or Mrs.

Bethards or Mr. Cochran, but if someone was hurt enough to have X-rays taken, they should not have been refused. Why is Licking County Hospital called a "private corporation" if taxpayers paid for it? I for one am a taxpayer and I for one don't like to hear our hospital called a "private corporation." If so, let the corporation pay for it and refund our taxes. I'm glad to see we have Legal Aid in Licking County and hope we have something, set up for families that don't have the money to pay for their medical each letter: no names will be withheld. needs.

We get sick too. If not, let our planning commission set something up for us. I have insurance, but for those that can't afford to pay insurance, it's too bad, according to our great hospital. It's called a private organization or. corporation.

I thought it was a nonprofit organization. EDITOR' NOTE: Charles Pierson, executive director of the hospital, calls the organization responsible for running the hospital the Licking County Hospital Association a "private, non-for-(public) support Though the hospital building is being paid for by taxpayers, Pierson said "not one. penny" is spent by taxpayers to finance its operation. The hospital supports itself entirely by bills for patient care and contributions, Pierson said. Dam supported I SEEMTO ALWAYS BE REPRESENTED BY By R.

C. NICKEL, 82 Main Utica. I live in the Utica business district. In 1959, I had two and a half inches of water in my house. I also have a farm in the dam site.

The government pays me every year not to farm it, so when they talk about the good farm land going, it doesn't make sense to me. I also mow about 50 acres and see one rabbit, and maybe two. No birds. There are thousands of people who would benefit from the dam. It doesn't look like a trustee, school teacher, or a school board member could stop progress.

That is the story of Utica, that anything that is good gets a "no." I am in favor of the dam 100 per cent..