When surgeons disagree about an operation, or when hospital authorities accuse a surgeon of unprofessional practice, the public ordinarily hears nothing of it. The medical profession has a code of silence that covers nearly all such cases. But last week Pontiac, Mich. (pop. 80,000) was treated to a hair-raising public airing of charges and countercharges exchanged between Pontiac General Hospital and a surgeon recently suspended from its staff. The case badly shook the town's confidence in its appointed healers, and it gave the rest of the U.S. something to think about.
Center of the storm was a 42-year-old Arkansan, Dr. Neil...
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