THIS REVIEW is an effort to expose the need for, and the problems encountered in, developing an amputee clinic in a rural area.
The staff of James Decker Munson Hospital, a 250-bed general hospital with an adjacent 90-bed Tricounty Medical Care facility, located in Traverse City, Mich, originated a progressive plan for total patient care with the organization of the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine.
The hospital is in a rural setting more than 150 miles from the nearest city with facilities for amputees. The community approximates 18,000 people and the immediate tricounty rural area approximates 50,000 people. The northern one third of the lower peninsula, served in part by the hospital and its facilities, has an estimated population of 100,000 people. In the surrounding several counties there are many small, well-staffed rural hospitals serving sparsely populated areas.
Within the confines of the hospital, the concepts of intensive, intermediate, long-intermediate, ambulatory,