ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a discussion of only "direct patient care" and "other" activity; that is, a more detailed discussion of activities when interns are not engaged in academic activity. It presents four categories of work: management of the medical setting; exchange of information; direct patient care; and supplementary patient care. Interns at both hospitals engaged in activities that are not patient care per se, but arrangement for facilities or services that make it possible to take care of patients. These activities included obtaining necessary equipment, arranging for social services, collecting supplies, and similar tasks by which interns try to control the physical environment. Most people at a hospital need to know the conditions of and services required by the patients. The exchange of information among these people is what permits the organization of patient care. The data suggest that interns at the general hospital are closely supervised by staff physicians.
