Keeping in mind that the railroad hospitals were pioneers of industrial healthcare in the beginning, clearly toward the end they were dinosaurs. I once got a chest xray at the SP Hospital in SF on a machine that looked like it should have been in a museum. But toward the end I think the bigger problem was it is unlikely that railroad hospitals attracted the best and brightest among doctors. I can remember in particular one doctor, whose name I have forgotten, who gave physicals. After leaving SP I can remember my subsequent physician, a UCSF professor, making some rather unkind comments about the SP doctor's diagnosis of my various ailments. But SP's hospital department was only part of a bigger picture of changes in healthcare. The good news is now they can keep us old folks alive almost forever. The bad news is Medicare can't afford to pay for all that care. We need more young folks to work hard and subsidize us old folks.

JBWX