Medicine: Doctor for All Ills

When John Hilton Knowles was director of Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital, the elevator operator called him John, the nurses thought him charmingly handsome, and both the medical staff and trustees considered him something of a miracle worker. He burnished the hospital's already fine reputation. Under his leadership, the hospital's physical plant was partially rebuilt, while much of its ponderous bureaucracy was short-circuited. He promoted an extended-care unit for the aged and chronically ill, established clinics in Boston's heavily Italian North End and in depressed Charlestown. He engineered the opening at Logan Airport of a medical station linked with the main hospital...

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