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of his calling and, in a deeper sense, the facts of his life.
SYLVIA THOMPSON
Medical Transition
flight 404 from Los angeles to boston was somewhere over eastern Ohio when Mrs. Syl-via
Thompson, a fifty-six-year-old mother of three, began to experience chest pain.
The pain was not severe, but it was persistent. After the aircraft landed, she asked an airline of-ficial if
there was a doctor at the airport. He directed her to the Logan Airport Medical Station, at Gate 23, near
the Eastern Airlines terminal.
Entering the waiting area, Mrs. Thompson told the secretary that she would like to see a doctor.
"Are you a passenger?" the secretary said.
"Yes," Mrs. Thompson said.
"What seems to be the matter?"
"I have a pain in my chest."
"The doctor will see you in just a minute," the secretary said. "Please take a seat."
Mrs. Thompson sat down. From her chair, she could look across the reception area to the com-puter
console behind the secretary, and beyond to the small pharmacy and dispensary of the station. She could
see three of the six nurses who run the
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Sylvia Thompson
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station around the clock. It was now two in the af-ternoon, and the station was relatively quiet; earlier in
the day a half dozen people had come in for yellow fever vaccinations, which are given ev-ery Tuesday
and Saturday morning. But now the only other patient she could see was a young air-plane mechanic
who had cut his finger and was having it cleaned in the treatment room down the corridor.
A nurse came over and checked her blood pres-sure, pulse, and temperature, writing the informa-tion
down on a slip of paper.
The door to the room nearest Mrs. Thompson was closed. From inside, she heard muffled voices.
After several minutes, a stewardess came out and closed the door behind her. The stewardess ar-ranged
her next appointment with the secretary and left.
The secretary turned to Mrs. Thompson. "The doctor will talk with you now," she said, and led Mrs.
Thompson into the room that the stewardess had just left.
It was pleasantly furnished with drapes and a carpet. There was an examining table and a chair; both
faced a television console. Beneath the TV screen was a remote-control television camera. Over in
another corner of the room was a portable camera on a rolling tripod. In still another comer, near the
examining couch, was a large instrument console with gauges and dials.
"You'll be speaking with Dr. Murphy," the sec-retary said.
A nurse then came into the room and motioned Mrs. Thompson to take a seat. Mrs. Thompson looked
uncertainly at all the equipment. On the screen, Dr. Raymond Murphy was looking down at some papers
on his desk. The nurse said: "Dr. Murphy." Dr. Murphy looked up. The television camera beneath the
TV screen made a grinding noise, and pivoted around to train on the nurse.
"Yes?"
"This is Mrs. Thompson from Los Angeles. She is a passenger, fifty-six-years old, and she has chest
pain. Her blood pressure is 120/80, her pulse is 78, and her temperature is 101.4."
Dr. Murphy nodded. "How do you do, Mrs. Thompson."
Mrs. Thompson was slightly flustered. She turned to the nurse. "What do I do?"
"Just talk to him. He can see you through that camera there, and hear you through that micro-phone."
She pointed to the microphone suspended from the ceiling.
"But where is he?"
"I'm at the Massachusetts General Hospital," Dr. Murphy said. "When did you first get this pain?"
"Today, about two hours ago."
"In flight?"
"Yes."
"What were you doing when it began?"
"Eating lunch. It's continued since then."
"Can you describe it for me?"
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Sylvia Thompson
123
"It's not very strong, but it's sharp. In the left side of my chest. Over here," she said, pointing. Then she
caught herself, and looked questioningly at the nurse.
"I see," Dr. Murphy said. "Does the pain go anywhere? Does it move around?"
"No."
"Do you have pain in your stomach, or in your teeth, or in either of your arms?"
"No."
"Does anything make it worse or better?"
"It hurts when I take a deep breath."
"Have you ever had it before?"
"No. This is the first time."
"Have you ever had any trouble with your heart or lungs before?"
She said she had not. The interview continued for several minutes more, while Dr. Murphy
deter-mined that she had no striking symptoms of car-diac disease, that she smoked a pack of cigarettes
a day, and that she had a chronic unproductive cough.
He then said, "I'd like you to sit on the couch, please. The nurse will help you disrobe."
Mrs. Thompson moved from the chair to the couch. The remote-control camera whirred me-chanically
as it followed her. The nurse helped Mrs. Thompson undress. Then Dr. Murphy said: "Would you point
to where the pain is, please?"
Mrs. Thompson pointed to the lower-left chest wall, her finger describing an arc along the ribs.
"All right. I'm going to listen to your lungs and heart now."
The nurse stepped to the large instrument con-sole and began flicking switches. She then applied a
small, round metal stethoscope to Mrs. Thomp-son's chest. On the TV screen, Mrs. Thompson saw
Dr. Murphy place a stethoscope in his ears. "Just breathe easily with your mouth open," Dr. Murphy
said.
For some minutes he listened to breath sounds, directing the nurse where to move the stethoscope.
He then asked Mrs. Thompson to say "ninety-nine" over and over, while the stethoscope was moved.
At length he shifted his attention to the heart.
"Now I'd like you to lie down on the couch," Dr. Murphy said, and directed that the stethoscope be
removed. To the nurse: "Put the remote camera on Mrs. Thompson's face. Use a close-up lens."
"An eleven hundred?" the nurse asked.
"An eleven hundred will be fine."
The nurse wheeled the remote camera over from the corner of the room and trained it on Mrs.
Thompson's face. In the meantime, Dr. Murphy adjusted his own camera so that it was looking at her
abdomen.
"Mrs. Thompson," Dr. Murphy said, "I'll be watching both your face and your stomach as the nurse
palpates your abdomen. Just relax now."
He then directed the nurse, who felt different areas of the abdomen. None was tender.
"I'd like to look at the feet now," Dr. Murphy
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125
said. With the help of the nurse, he checked them for edema. Then he looked at the neck veins.
"Mrs. Thompson, we're going to take a cardio-gram now."
The proper leads were attached to the patient. On the TV screen, she watched Dr. Murphy turn to one
side and look at a thin strip of paper.
The nurse said: "The cardiogram is transmitted directly to him."
"Oh my," Mrs. Thompson said. "How far away is he?"
"Two and a half miles," Dr. Murphy said, not looking up from the cardiogram.
While the examination was proceeding, another nurse was preparing samples of Mrs. Thompson's blood
and urine in a laboratory down the hall. She placed the samples under a microscope attached to a TV
camera. Watching on a monitor, she could see the image that was being transmitted to Dr. Murphy. She
could also talk directly with him, moving the slide about as he instructed.
Mrs. Thompson had a white count of 18,000. Dr. Murphy could clearly see an increase in the different
kinds of white cells. He could also see that the urine was clean, with no evidence of infection.
Back in the examining room, Dr. Murphy said: "Mrs. Thompson, it looks like you have a pneu-monia.
We'd like you to come into the hospital for X rays and further evaluation. I'm going to give you something to
make you a little more comfort-able."
He directed the nurse to write a prescription. She then carried it over to the telewriter, above the
equipment console. Using the telewriter unit at the MGH, Dr. Murphy signed the prescription.
Afterward, Mrs. Thompson said: "My goodness. It was just like the real thing."
When she had gone, Dr. Murphy discussed both her case and the television link-up.
"We think it's an interesting system," he said, "and it has a lot of potential. It's interesting that patients
accept it quite well. Mrs. Thompson was a little hesitant at first, but very rapidly became ac-customed to
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Dobre pomysły nie mają przeszłości, mają tylko przyszłość. Robert Mallet
De minimis - o najmniejszych rzeczach.
Dobroć jest ważniejsza niż mądrość, a uznanie tej prawdy to pierwszy krok do mądrości. Theodore Isaac Rubin
Dobro to tylko to, co szlachetne, zło to tylko to, co haniebne.
Dla człowieka nie tylko świat otaczający jest zagadką; jest on nią sam dla siebie. I z obu tajemnic bardziej dręczącą wydaje się ta druga. Antoni Kępiński (1918-1972)
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