"Get the patient out of bed and walking," has become an increasingly familiar refrain of surgeons after virtually every kind of operation. But there seemed to be one obvious exception: if the patient has a broken leg or, worse, two broken legs should he not stay in a cast and flat on his back for weeks? No, concluded Orthopedic Surgeon Ernst Dehne of the Veterans Administration Hospital in Memphis; let him start walking as soon as the cast is dry.
The broad-scale test of this idea was carried out at the Army's Fitzsimons General Hospital in Denver...
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