The operation of a corporate medical department.

Medical departments within industry vary widely. Some large companies have virtually no medical department. Some have a dispensary-type set up, where band aids or aspirin are dispensed, and the nurse refers out anything more serious. In contrast to this, some companies employ full-time internists or preventive medicine specialists, part or full-time orthopedists, part or full-time psychiatrists, and even offer the services of full-time dentists. The purpose of this article is to describe an industrial medical department which functions somewhere between the two extremes above in an average-size company involved in the aerospace field.