442 ILLINOIS STATE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



order or by a board of public spirited citizens, this fun- 

 damental obligation of taking care of the sick of the 

 community still exists. Every citizen of the community 

 in which such a hospital is brought, should have, theo- 

 retically, equal privileges. By privileges I mean the 

 right to receive medical care and nursing in the insti- 

 tution when the emergency or demand affecting him or 

 his family arises. Assuming that his demands are con- 

 sistent with the hospital organization, and assuming the 

 semi-public character of these institutions and the right 

 of the public to be served in them, the question of organ- 

 ization to meet this condition comes into consideration. 

 We have two distinct divisions of the activities to be 

 organized. First, organization from the standpoint of 

 housing, boarding, and supplying nursing care; second, 

 the organization of the medical care. 



The third type of hospital is similar to the second type 

 in its fundamental obligations to the medical profession 

 and to the public. To show the potential danger of fail- 

 ure to maintain this fundamental relation in a hospital 

 where a staff functions, I wish to draw comparisons be- 

 tween the Types II and III hospitals. 



The issues at stake are these: shall a hospital where 

 physical existence is controlled by a non-medical person- 

 nel and which is dependent on the public for its support 

 place itself under the control of a limited group of medi- 

 cal men, or shall it function separately and independent- 

 ly of the medical profession, granting equal privileges 

 to all members of the medical profession of the commun- 

 ity? Will the interests of the public be served best by 

 selecting a group of medical men to take over control, 

 or by organizing the hospital in such a way that all medi- 

 cal men have equal privileges? Under the Type I hos- 

 pital the functioning of the hospital always progresses 

 in accordance with the ideals of the men in charge. In 

 the Type II hospital each patient is cared for according 

 to the ability and ideals of the attending physician of his 

 choice. In the Type III hospital only the physicians in 

 control of the hospital are privileged to practice their 

 profession to the full extent granted them by their li- 



