THE RADIO DOCTOR

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 72, 26 March 1932, Page 15

THE RADIO DOCTOR

HIS UNSEEN PATIENTS

In Ottawa sits the panel doctor who has the widest practice in the world. His name, Dr. P. S. Parley, is. known all over the wild Canadian North. From Aklavik on the west of the continnent to Cape Chidley on the east people hear him; but his patients never see him and he never sees them. He hears, speaks, advises, prescribes by wireless. An interesting amount of his work is given by the "Children's Newspaper." In the outposts" of Canada are Government weather and radio stations, depots of the Canadian Mounted Police, fur-trading posts, mining camps, and at each _ little groups of people dwell in loneliness. The loneliness is not what it was before the wireless arrived to keep them in touch with the life of cities. But sometimes, sweeter far than any music, comes one of the bedtime stories of Dr., Parley. The story comes on a well-arranged plan. At each of these far-away Government posts is a medical manual, like , J^ c that Dr- Pariey, Chief Medical Officer of the Government Department of Health, keeps on his desk at his headquarters in Ottawa.

hundreds of miles of the desolate North by wireless from Dr; Parley. v People call Dr. Parley up by wireless, telling him all they can. The wireless doctor makes a swift diagnosis and in a few minutes the treatment is flashed back. The advice given may be how to deal with a frost-bite or what to do with a broken wisdom tooth. It may be something far more serious, like the dangerous illness of an Eskimo woman who is listed in the Government records as "Maggie, wife of Tommy," Eesolution Island. .

Maggie was very ill indeed. Dozens of messages were exchanged • between Dr. Parley and Kesolution Island. Once the circuit was held open all day while her case was considered, her symptoms carefully noted, her temperature watched, and the emergency remedies radioed back. ■

More often the treatments are simpler. The" doctor may wireless back the instructions to turn to page 52 in the manual and follow* the instructions, or to use medicine 37 in the drug cabinet.

But the man whose task is to sit in that quiet office in Ottawa, reaching out an unseen skilful hand to patients hundreds of miles away by desolate lakes and woods and rivers, needs imagination and swift' resource, and sympathy above all. The men who are carrying out his instructions need these qualities too. ■

It is like a naval signal book, except that it gives more diffuse information, and is written in words that can be understood by any layman. It tells one, tor example, how to examine a patient what 'symptoms are important in any particular case, and what treatments to follow. ?§! With, the medical manual is a cabinet containing 72 standard medicines and a first-aid kit with instructions how to; use it. The solitary outpost has m fact everything but advice in difficult cases. The advice comes over

Once a patient had dangerous disturbance in his chest. The doctor told his informant to draw an imaginary big cross on the chest, and say where the pain was. It was in the northern half of the south-left quadrant. Dr. Parley was satisfied and prescribed accordingly.