A siren screeched like a banshee as the ambulance careened jetlike through dark night streets.
Inside, a young woman, fresh face now grim and tired, hung onto her seat while her thoughts raced ahead to the possible
disaster awaiting her attention.
She bit her lips, braced her feet for a sudden stop.
It came, and the young woman leaped from the rear of the red ambulance, her white clothes stark against the night.
A plumb sleep-tousled woman, her face worried and her hair , in curlers, twisted the ends of a cheap bathrobe. Fear, Agony
''He's bad off. Real bad, nurse. Will the doctor be here soon?" Her voice was a whine of fear and agony.
The girl glanced up from her work to smile as the ambulance driver said gently, "this lady is the doctor."
She was one of six female interns at Charity hospital, all of whom ride the ambulances with efficiency and calm to match the huskiest male intern.
The six young women take their turns with other interns on the gruesome, often tragic and sometimes humorous accident room-ambulance detail.
The six women who chose the rigid, demanding medical profession and whose lives are for the brief period of their internships tied up closely with New Orleans' suffering needy are:
Camilla Ann Cowardin, 25, Southboro, Mass.
Ann I. Long, 25, Vicksburg, Miss.
Betty J. Morphy, 23, Long Beach, Miss.
Joan K. Short, 25, Keystone, W. Va.
Wanda Moseley, 24, New Iberia.*
Violet Matovich, 27, Gary, Ind. PHOTO: ON CALL for emergencies are these female interns, four of six young women at Charity hospital who ride the ambulances and work the accident room along with their male counterparts. From left ares DR. JOAN K.
SHORT, DR. ELIZABETH J. MORPHY, DR. VIOLET B. MATOVICH and DR. WANDA M. MOSELEY. The other two female interns are not pictured because they were on duty in surgery.
