Education at Sunrise

Before dawn one day last week, a program director and six technicians from KDYL-TV parked their mobile unit in the backyard of the County General Hospital in Salt Lake City and set up telecasting equipment in the infirmary's amphitheater. At 7 o'clock, when the sun had barely risen and the station's regular viewers were not expected to have reached for their selector knobs, Dr. Robert S. Warner stood before a camera and explained that the upcoming program was intended for doctors only. However, there was no way to keep the general public from watching if it wished.

The program was the first in a series planned by the University of Utah's Medical School for the postgraduate education of doctors already in practice. Closed-circuit TV, which has been used in connection with medical conventions (TIME, June 25, 1951), was impracticable for the mountain states because there is no north-south coaxial cable or microwave to connect the chief cities of the area. Instead, Utah doctors decided to take up KDYL's offer of an early morning hour, when nearly every doctor can watch and the general public is not likely to tune in.

Dr. William Christensen, professor of radiology, ran the first program and showed a mass of X rays to help physicians diagnose their patients' complaints from shadows showing calcification. One particularly clear example: spotting a case of diabetes from chalky deposits in the sperm duct. Only once did Dr. Christensen defer to the possible presence of laymen in the audience, by describing a fetus shown in the womb as "a little stranger." On the other hand, there was nothing that the accidental, nonprofessional viewer could have found upsetting.

By week's end KDYL had a fine collection of encouraging fan mail from doctors as far away as Price, 125 miles to the south, and Preston, Idaho, 112 miles to the north. A few uninvited laymen added their approval. Future programs in the weekly series may include more blood and guts.

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