Medical Department, United States Army: Physical Standards In World War II (1967) By Foster, William B. (William Bell), Hellman, Ida Levin, Hesford, Douglas, McPherson, Darrell G.,
 
Medical Department, United States Army, in World War II and Clinical series (United States. Department of the Army. Office of the Surgeon General)
 
 This is one of the volumes in the Medical Department, United States Army series. During World War II, the U.S. Army Medical Department reached a personnel strength which it had never before attained. Its peak strength of 700,000 was three times that of the entire Regular Army in 1939. In contrast to personnel procurement in most other arms and services, the entire officer corps of the Medical Department, exclusive of the Medical Administrative Corps, had to be procured directly from qualified civilian professional groups. Furthermore, the personnel required were in a critical category, and the need for them was immediate and urgent. This volume of the history of the U.S. Army Medical Department in World War II is the story of how the enormous personnel expansion was achieved; of how qualified medical personnel were secured; of how the wartime military medical establishment was utilized and the highest standards of professional medical care were maintained; and, finally, of how the wartime Medical Department was contracted to a peacetime level.The magnitude of the medical achievement in World War II should not be permitted to obscure the difficulties that attended it. They were numerous and fundamental. When mobilization began in 1940, the classification of civilian occupations was still sketchy, and military occupational specialties had not yet been devised. It is only fair to say that, in spite of its inflexibility in certain respects, the Medical Department early recognized the need for improved classification of medical personnel and developed this method more thoroughly than any other branch of service. As the classification processes improved, genuine shortages were reduced or eliminated by employment of available personnel to the best possible advantage. By the end of the war, the great majority of medical officers were properly classified and were assigned where it was believed that they would be most useful, even if, in some instances, the assignment was not always in conformity with the officer's precise classification. There were a number of ways in which medical personnel in short supply were used with great efficiency. An outstanding example was the establishment of centers for specialized treatment and the use of specialist personnel in them. Another was the replacement, whenever possible, of scarcer categories of personnel with those more easily obtained.
 
Hard Cover
356 Pages
In Good Condition