PEDIATRICS Vol. 63 No. 4 April 1979, pp. 611
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THE BIGGER THE SYSTEM, THE NARROWER AND MORE SPECIALIZED THE INTERFACE WITH INDIVIDUALS

John Gall

In very large systems, the relationship is not with the individual at all but with his Social Security number, his driver's license, or some other paper phantom. In systems of medium size, some residual awareness of the individual may still persist. A hopeful indication was recently observed by the author in a medium-sized hospital. Taped to the wall of the nurses' station, just above the Vital Signs Remote Sensing Console, which enables the nurses to record whether the patient is breathing and even to take his pulse without actually going down the hall to see him, was the following hand-lettered reminder: THE CHART IS NOT THE PATIENT.

Unfortunately, this slogan, with its humanistic implications, turned out to be misleading. The nurses were neither attending nor making notations in the charts. They were in the hospital auditorium, taking a course in interdisciplinary function (Interdisciplinary function may be defined as the art of correlating one's own professional activities more and more with those of other professionals while actually doing less and less.)