Hailey The prop-jet Viscount turned evenly into wind and
нев began to lose height. Dr Kent O'Donnell reflected idly that aviation and medicine had a good deal in common.
Both were products of science; both were changing the world's life and destroying old concepts; both were moving toward unknown horizons and a future only dimly seen.
There yas another parallel too. Aviation nowadays was having trouble keeping pace with its own discoveries; an aircraft designer he knew had told him recently, "If an airplane's flying it's already out of date."
The practice of medicine, O'Donnell thought, shading his eyes from the bright afternoon sun of mid-August, was very much the same. Hospitals, clinics, physicians themselves, were never able to be entirely up to date.
A man might die today when the drug that could save him was already invented and even, perhaps, in limited use. But it took time for new developments to become known and to gain acceptance. The same was true of surgery.
Heart surgery, for example, was fairly general now and within reach of most who needed it badly. But for a long time only a handful of surgeons were qualified or willing to attempt it.
There was always the question, too, with new things: is this good; is it a wise development? Not all change meant progress. Plenty of times in medicine there were false scents.
His thoughts were broken by the Viscount taxiing in.
O'Donnell waited until the motors stopped and passengers began to disembark. Then, seeing Dr Coleman among them, he went down the stairs to greet the hospital's new assistant director of pathology in the arrival lobby.
David Coleman was surprised to see the chief of surgery — tall, bronzed, standing out from the crowd - waiting for him with outstretched hand. O'Donnell said,
"Ve though to he some Toe Pould be aldn't make it, but
As they moved through the hot, crowded lobby O'Don-
Coll man colem staglance around hi Censinly Dowid he had had a three-hour air journey, his gabardine suit was uncreased, his well-trimmed hair carefully parted and brushed, his shave recent. He wore no hat, which made him look younger than his thirty-one years. Though slighter than O'Donnell in build, his features were clear-cut and well defined; he had a longish face and an incisive jaw. The brief case under his arm added a professional touch; picture of a young scientist, O'Donnell thought.