Former military medics may help fill the Lewiston-Clarkston doctor shortage in the near future, Dr. Cleve S. English told the Clarkston Rotary Club Tuesday.
A shortage of six or eight doctors exists in the Twin Cities, he said. The shortage reflects a nationwide lack of 50,000 doctors.
The University of Washington at Seattle is re-training corpsmen from the armed services with six to seven years’ training and with good medical academic backgrounds as doctors’ assistants, Dr. English said.
One of the highly trained medical aides will join the staff of a valley physician in April.
Among doctors’ duties which may be assumed by the assistants are the changing of casts, suturing small lacerations, taking care of routine upper respiratory infections and minor influenza infections, routine physicals, nursing home and house calls and emergency assistance. The aides must work under the supervision of a doctor, however. They are certified, rather than licensed, the doctor said.
The medical shortage has grown so acute in the valley that new families find it next to impossible to find a family doctor, Dr. English said, adding he hopes the new aides may be one answer to the problem.
New doctors cite a “high allergy potential” and a “high particle count” in Twin City air as a reason for not locating here, Dr. English said.
Some 225 of the doctors’ helpers will be trained by the university to work in Idaho, Montana and Alaska, as well as Washington, he said. Some of the veterans will graduate in about a year.
Included in the program is a practical period of training with a cooperating doctor.
The corpsmen perform surgery in emergency situations in the armed forces, Dr. English said, but will not do operations in civilian life.
A similar program in California is retraining registered nurses as doctors’ assistants, he said.
This story was published in the Jan. 14, 1971, edition of the Lewiston Tribune.
