The Bulletin’s Day Book

An old Greek gentleman, Hippocrates by name and known to all physicians as the “father of medicine,” who is supposed to have formulated an oath which to this day forms the sum and substance of the medical code of ethics, may be properly envisioned as having indulged in a bit of “turning over” and other calisthenics peculiar to those dwellers in beneath- the-ground domiciles who have been deeply annoyed at some above-the-ground occurrence.

The above-the-ground occurrence that has undoubtedly given the long deceased Hippocrates as much annoyance as he has suffered in many years was the recent sensation created by the large group of Montreal internes.

With emergency operations waiting to be performed, this body of youthful physicians, with the Hippocratic oath presumably still fresh in their memories, laid down their tools, discarded their operating gowns and deserted their newly assumed posts at the Notre Dame Hospital.

Their desertion they termed a “protest.” It was a protest against the presence in their midst of a Jewish physician, Dr. Sam Rabinovitch.

Action of the executive head of the department in this emergency, probably unprecedented in medical annals, was immediate and commendable. He dismissed the internes and called for volunteer physicians to fill their roles and at the same time invited applications from other recent medical school graduates to fill the vacancies created by the dismissals.

Instead of clearing up the situation, however, this action precipitated a crisis in other French Canadian hospitals throughout the city, where more physicians walked out as a gesture of sympathy with the original band of strikers.

While this situation threatened to become so serious that fatalities were momentarily expected Dr. Rabinovitch, the innocent cause of the whole nasty business, decided that the time had come for him to act. Whether his decision was voluntary, or pressure was brought to bear upon him, the fact remains the young Jewish doctor resigned. His resignation was worded in such a way that the prejudice-ridden internes were put in the extremely bad light they selected for themselves.

” . . . because care of the sick has always been of first importance to the Jewish people,” his letter of resignation explained.

Quite palpably, “care of the sick” was of secondary importance to the hot-headed, race-biased young doctors. Giving a Jew the “works” was of primary importance.

There can be nothing but praise for young Dr. Rabinovitch’s self-sacrificing action. In the action of the hospital authorities, however, in receiving back to the fold the violators of the Hippocratic oath, there is little honor. True they had the patients to consider. But surely, sufficient doctors could have been brought to Montreal at very short notice to replace those who had been so careless of their trust. Instead of sticking by their dismissal act, the hospital authorities, after having acted with courage and honor, turned their back on both and received the culprits with forgiveness.

True, the forgiveness was tempered with condemnation of the strike, but the internes had won their point in that they in their public apologies reaffirmed their original refusal to work with the Jewish physician.

For Dr. Rabinovitch, a bouquet of orchids. For the hospital authorities, as far as their original stand is concerned, a garland of the same; but for the hospital authorities in their last move, a garland of yellow dandelions would be more suitable.

And as for the internes—there is no flower appropriate for their case. Their names should be writ in crimson on the special scroll of shame reserved for those who have scorned the Hippocratic oath.

—H. W.