Medicine: The Pop Hospital

Mrs. Madge Lawson suffered from nothing more serious than varicose veins, but when Dr. Jacob C. Huffman drove her into the West Virginia University Medical Center in Morgantown last week she got a red-carpet reception. While press photographers’ bulbs flashed. Mrs. Lawson, 72, got a bouquet from the third-floor nurses and was admitted for a specialist’s consultation on whether she should have a ligation (minor surgery to tie off veins). Reason for the whoopdedo was that Dr. Huffman, president of the State Medical Association, had chosen Mrs. Lawson to be the first patient admitted to the new medical center, one of the nation’s most ambitious.

No less remarkable than the fact that West Virginia, a small, poor state, could build the center was the way it was financed. When the center was proposed a decade ago, university spokesmen told the legislature they did not want it unless both building and operating costs could be separately financed and guaranteed. It must not, they insisted, be dependent on the legislature’s appropriation whims. Then-Governor Okey L. Patteson pushed through a penny-a-bottle “pop tax.” Every man, woman and child in the state who has gulped down a soft drink since July 1951 has put up 1¢ for the center. The tax has yielded $25 million of the $30 million that the center has cost thus far, and will produce nearly all of the $3,000,000 annual operating costs.

No matter how financed, says Dr. Kenneth E. Penrod, the medical center’s vice president in charge, the center is good for the state’s emotional health because it gives the people confidence in their ability to do big things. And the medical center is big indeed. A single, two-wing building, the state’s largest, houses in one end the classrooms and laboratories for teaching the basic medical sciences in four schools: medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and nursing. With the four schools under one roof, students mingle, learn each other’s problems and viewpoints from sharing many of the same lab facilities and teachers. In the Teaching Hospital wing, where Mrs. Lawson was admitted, are beds for 522 patients, ultramodern operating theaters, and a variety of outpatient clinics.

Starting from scratch, the center’s planners have been able to break with many a hamstringing tradition. In many hospitals, nurses’ shifts begin at 7 a.m. (one of the reasons patients are awakened so early), 3 p.m. and 11 p.m. At Morgantown they will start an hour later, giving the patients a break and meshing better with nursely duties. One of Administrator Eugene L. Staples’ many proud exhibits is a food tray with smaller plates and side dishes, based on motivational research.

Patients with poor appetites after surgery, he explained, are disturbed by the conventional big plate on which a small portion of food appears to be lost. While they pick at the food, they complain that they are being starved. The same amount of food on smaller, better-designed tableware, says Staples, is more appetizing. Getting the patients to eat better sooner speeds their recovery.