Care and Treatment of The Annual Medical Patient Migration

Abstract

To the Editor.— Each year a migration southward of thousands upon thousands of middle-aged persons and retirees, includes many with serious chronic illnesses. These individuals have been treated by physicians in the northern parts of the United States during the summer months. They are instructed before they leave the north to "Get a prothrombin time at some laboratory," or "Get a blood sugar check somewhere while you're down there during the winter months." The result is that many show up at a hospital emergency room or hospital laboratory in a community such as ours, requesting that a test be done. They come to the emergency room because the instructions were given to them primarily just to get the laboratory test done. Most of them have not been instructed to contact a physician, nor have they been given the name of any physician in this area by their own physician in