Public Health School Group Discusses Use of High School Grads as Aides

Two engineers and a doctor from the School of Public Health spoke on new opportunities for health-related careers without the M.D. degree in the Leverett Senior Common Room last night.

Dr. Roger L. Nichols, Given Professor of Microbiology, and Herbert Sherman and Barney Reiffen, principal associates in Medicine (Engineering), led students in a discussion of the use of high school graduates in an experimental program at the Beth Israel Hospital to administer primary medical care--care needed to decide whether or not the patient needs further attention by a trained physician.

The group of doctor's aides used in this program were trained for four weeks in basic medical techniques. All had high school diplomas, but the group included "first-year college drop outs to a 52-year-old married woman from Chelsea," Sherman said.

These aides examined patients with the aid of a medical flow chart known as a "protocol," which solicits information from the patient about his symptoms and prescribes tests depending on what the information is. The protocols are explicit in order to minimize the amount of judgement required on the part of the aide.

The group preferred the use of these aides to the use of computerized diagnosing techniques, which doctors dislike. "Diagnosis is the challenge of medicine, the fun of it," Reiffen said. "To the doctor, diagnosis is everything."

The Leverett audience, which made up in interest what it lacked in number, responded favorably to the proposal for using non-college graduates.