Reservists Contacted on Medical Duty

Doctors, nurses and other medical reservists in Southern California and across the country are being asked to consider serving at military hospitals should shortages of medical personnel develop because of the Persian Gulf crisis.

An aide to the Army surgeon general in Washington, who declined to be identified, said that office started the recruitment operation, which he described as unprecedented in its scope and speed, on Wednesday.

Army Reserve administrators in Santa Ana, San Bernardino and Riverside on Thursday began calling about 120 medically trained reservists in Southern California, asking them to decide within 24 hours if they would be willing to do duty at a U.S.-based hospital.

“What we’re doing is developing a contingency plan in the event that the Army medical staff is used up and moved out to the Middle East,” said Walter Shelton, staff administrator at the Army Hospital in Ventura, which oversees all local medical reserve units.

Shelton called the response positive but declined to provide figures on how many have accepted.

Those reservists contacted are being offered a choice of three hospitals. They could work for a period of three months to perhaps a year.