School and Work Release Evaluations

To the Editor.—  Drs Holleman and Holleman¹ deserve accolades. Their report should be required reading for every legislator, welfare system caseworker, and public school official, not to mention every physician. Work release evaluations and their close relative, disability evaluations, present important problems for specialists as well as primary care physicians. As a radiation oncologist, I frequently am asked to complete a complicated disability form for the State Department of Social and Health Services. The form represents a well-intentioned attempt to quantify disability evaluations, but its completion requires considerable physician hubris. Even if I were capable of measuring accurately the function of each joint and the ability of the patient to tolerate a standing posture for a specified number of hours, it is not possible to suppose that I also understand the specific physical, mental, and psychological demands of the patient's job and that I can correlate the physical findings