Potential recruits in medical outpatients--an audit.

A retrospective study was made of 309 randomly selected potential service recruits seen over five years by different consultant physicians in an Army hospital. Only nine of 133 referred with a history of asthma were turned down because of an abnormality in their exercise lung function test. Only four of 92 referred for a systolic heart murmur were rejected. Only one was turned down because of a headache or migraine out of 30 referred with that diagnosis. None of nine with supposed high blood pressure nor of five with a past history of pneumothorax was rejected. Of seven referred because of epilepsy, all five with definite evidence of this were turned down. The predictability of the specialist decision in these conditions suggests that more than 80% of all potential recruits referred to hospital with medical problems (at least 800 people yearly in UK) do not need to attend.