852 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
meet the requirements of a general country practice, or goes out 
of the profession entirely, because it does not offer sufficient 
scope for the exercise of his genius. 
The men who take most interest in these clinics will appre¬ 
ciate ideal conditions of environment, but they will also appre¬ 
ciate the difficulties of obtaining these ideal conditions, and will 
consequently be willing to overlook defects in such matters, but 
they will not tolerate u bungling ” or lack of dexterity in tech¬ 
nique. 
Let those who feel it their duty to criticise (and it is an 
honorable duty) not ask too much in the matter of u appoint¬ 
ments,” but they may justly demand fair skill in the operators. 
However, it may not be out of place right here to state that 
“ speed ” is not skill in all cases ; in fact, the most rapid oper¬ 
ators are frequently the least skillful. 
It seems to be pretty generally conceded, so far as I have 
been able to ascertain, that your suggestion to set aside one half 
day for the clinic is desirable, but in the past the difficulty in 
obtaining expert operators, who would perform the operations 
they had agreed to, has been the greatest one with which the 
local Committee of Arrangements has had to contend. Very 
few men are sufficiently versatile to be able to perform a num¬ 
ber of operations with the greatest skill, but many ordinary 
general practitioners are experts in say one or two particular 
operations, and are, therefore, much more desirable as operators 
at our clinics than the man who performs all operations fairly 
well, but has not attained marked skill in any one. Almost 
every member of the profession knows at least one man who 
has unusual ability to perform at least one operation.. Those 
who do know such a man should not fail to place that informa¬ 
tion in the hands of the local Committee of Arrangements. 
Two experts should be selected for each operation scheduled, 
who will give unqualified promises to attend the meeting 
and operate. One may perform the operation and the other as¬ 
sist in case both are present. In the absence of one, the other 
is to operate, but if both should fail to appear, the operation 
should be omitted entirely, unless the committee is certain a 
skillful man can be obtained to perform it. In this connection 
it may be said that volunteers are not desirable. They usually 
have one of the qualities of a good operator, but frequently 
none of the others. 
Again, it seems to me a very few operations well performed 
are worth much more than a large number indifferently executed. 
