HOSPITAL ATTENDANT

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 November 1931, Page 3

HOSPITAL ATTENDANT

ENGAGED AS SHIP’S DOCTOR. LONDON, October’ 27. Charged at West Hani with having falsely pretended to be a doctor, a Londoner, Charles John Powell, aged 21, was fined £5. It was stated for the prosecution that Powell, a hospital attendant with some medical education, had been appointed surgeon on the Port Denison, bound for Australia, by the Commonwealth and Dominion Line, to which he had applied under the name and qualification of 'Dr. Duncan Pick.” Powell had attended a number of patients during the voyage and nothing untoward had happened. He had arrived in Australia in June, and had left for England in August as Dr. Pick on begird the company’s vessel Port Arthur. Ho received an order to attend the captain, who was suffering from heart disease, and gave him good treat-

ment, under the direction of other doctors. He afterwards wrote a letter to tho company admitting that he was not Dr. Pick. “This man whose job was sweeping out a nursing home, posed >as a doctor on long voyages to and from Australia,” commented the magistrate. “If. anything had happened to the patiethts, he might have been charged with manslaughter.”