Pediatric Service Saves Veterans Cash

Counsellor for Veterans John E. Monro '34 said that he felt like a man on a street corner giving away five dollar bills. Nobody would believe him.

He had a point. The three-week-old Pediatric Service for the children of University veteran students actually sounds too good to be true.

Last Sunday night, for example, Mrs. Theodore Brown, wife of a third-year law student, was having baby trouble. Her 13-month-old daughter, Pamela, had been wheezing all evening. Her husband was out of town. Her pediatrician was in Manchester for the weekend. Along about midnight, she was afraid that the wheezing might be something serious.

A neighbor in the University's Hingbare Street housing project where the Browns live-had told her about the new Pediatric Service. With some hesitancy, Mrs. Brown put in a call.

Doubts Vanish

She says now that "all doubts vanished" when Dr. Katherine Kiehl appeared shortly thereafter, diagnosed Pamela's wheezing as the croup, and whisked her away to the Massachusetts General Hospital the immediate admittance alone amazed Mrs. Brown, Pamela was administered a shot of penicillin and 36 hours later showed up in good health at her parents' 36 Hingham Street home.

But what most amazed Mrs. Brown-and her husband, too, when he returned was that the whole operation didn't cost them a cent.

Emergency calls and treatment such as this, however, are only one apple out of the whole basket of child care offered by the Pediatric Service. Any one of the Harvard community's 1,500 to 2,000 children of veterans can get-free-examinations, immunization, diagnosis, treatment, hospital care, expensive medicines-in other words, the works.

Radiating from its 79 Mount Auburn Street headquarters, the Service will penetrate the home, the clinic, or the hospital, depending upon what environment the situation requires. To do this, it has one full-time pediatrician (Dr. Kiehl), one part-time pediatrician (Dr. William Dickson), a medical director (Dr. Francis MacDonald), two nurses, and a corp of secretaries.

Use Employees Clinic

The Service also has the use of the Employees Clinic on Holyoke Street, the use of the Hygiene Department Clinic at Harvardevens, and the complete pediatric facilities of the Massachusetts General Hospital. As a matter of fact, they can even dip into a drawerful of lollypops to pacify unruly clients.

Of course, somebody has to pay for all this. Actually, the money comes from the federal government, through the State of Massachusetts, through the Massachusetts General Hospital, through the University to the project. The set-up is a bit more complicated than that; but thanks to Dr. Allan M. Butler, professor of Pediatrics at the Medical School, it has been rolled up into a neat little package and tossed to the financially hard-pressed veteran student with no strings attached.

Wind From Washington

Last fall, Dr. Butler got wind of a similar project-now in its second year at the University of Washington. It seems that the Children's Bureau of the U. S. Federal Security Administration was looking for data on the problems of child health care and found the veteran student community the ideal place to get it. Dr. Butler convinced them that Harvard was an ideal place, too.

Dr. Butler's enthusiasm pervades the whole project-doctors, nurses, and even John Munro, who as counsellor for Veterans acts as liaison between the Service and the University. In fact, Munro is so enthused that ever since as Tuesday he has been leaving his administrative troubles at the end of the day to spend his evenings in volunteer carpenter work on expansion of the Service's facilities.

For New Clinic

The hammering and sawing he does is for the Service's own clinic, which will be needed in place of the Employees' Clinic when patients start to flock in. When this extra need became apparent recently, the University had already donated the office space (mainly for statisticians, etc.) at 79 Mount Auburn and had remodelled it. Harvard also came through with the next-door property-77 Mount Auburn-for the clinic.

Munro reasoned that the University had done enough and that it would be a simple task to spare them the expense of renovating. Liking the work and knowing that he could get vets to help him, he convinced Lehman Hall that he could do a professional job.

He recruited Leon E. Edwards '51, a first-term veteran student who expects to become a father any moment now and was willing to spend his afternoons on the job. About all that is needed now to finish the clinic is a little paint.

Up to yesterday, the Service had recorded 46 patients, had hospitalized three in Mass. General, and had made 19 house calls. In addition, 326 children had been registered for future examination.

Already proud of having attended one baby on its date of birth (care will begin as soon as the baby is born), the Service has 30 expectant mothers on its list.