Research in Walk-In Psychiatric Services in General Hospitals
JULES V. COLEMAN M.D.1
1 Clinical professor of public health and psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, 60 College Street, New Haven, Conn. 06510
Emergency treatment services in the general hospitals of urban centers have grown spectacularly in recent years, reflecting in effect a medical care vacuum for the slum poor. The medical and psychiatric needs of this population are known to be great, and a unique opportunity is presented to meet a changing pattern of medical-psychiatric demand. To do so, the emergency service as an accident accommodation must be replaced by its development as a primary clinic treating patients with illnesses associated with poverty.
