To the Editor:
—Ophthalmologists have long supported the principle of improving the standards for surgery in their field. They have also consistently objected to increasing the costs of surgical care to their patients, and the paper work to themselves and their staffs, of sending scleral buttons, iris fragments, muscle portions, etc., to the laboratory.
Recently a pathology laboratory in a university-connected clinic brought this problem to acute attention by insisting that all tissues must be submitted for pathological examination at the useless charge of $15 to the patient.
A request for definitive information was submitted to Dr. Kenneth B. Babcock, Director of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals, who replied:
I hasten to answer your letter because the statement made by the University Hospital at... is absolutely wrong. The Joint Commission has never in its history required that all tissues removed have a microscopic examination. We have said almost
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