MEDICAL CONFERENCE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 139, 25 March 1935, Page 6

MEDICAL CONFERENCE

THE COLLEGE OF SURGEONS. NEW HEADQUARTERS OPENED. FOR A POST-GRADUATE COURSE. Interesting details of the annual conference of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons which he attended in Melbourne were given to a representative of the "Guardian" by Dr. J. Russell Wells this morning. The feature of the conference, said the doctor, was the opening of the new headquarters of the College in Spring Street, Melbourne, which has been opened free of debt. It is a college similar to the Royal Colleges of Surgeons in Europe, England, Edinburgh, and Dublin. The institution contains a very fine library, a pathological museum, a large lecture hall, and other departments, and a permanent secretarial staff will be set up. "It is concerned entirely with higher surgical education and with the raising of the standard of surgical practice and ethics in Australasia," Dr. Wells stated. "The course provided is a post-graduate one. The college con- ; i'ers a fellowship on medical men considered efficient and competent surgeons, and it undertakes to provide facilities for those who apply to obtain experience and training to qualify. The H-e is a proposal to establish in Melbourne a post-graduate hospital where courses of instruction will be given. Negotiations are at present taking place with the Prince Henry Hospital in Edinburgh to establish it as a hospital purely for post-graduate instruction especially in surgery." The Royal Australasian College of Surgeons has been in existence since 1927, and arrangements have been made for the primary examination for the Royal College of Surgeons of England to be taken in Dunedin and Melbourne.

The actual opening was conducted by Sir Holburt Waring (president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England), and visitors from sister institutions who took part were Professor John Fraser (Professor of Clinical Surgery at Edinburgh University), MiHenry Wade (senior surgeon at the Edinburgh 'Royal Infirmary) 4 Sir D'Arcy Power (consulting surgeon at the Middlesex Hospital, London), Professor Edward Archibald (Professor of Surgery at the McGill University, Cai> ada), Dr, Donald C. Balfour (surgeon to the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, U.S.A., and president-elect of the American Medical Association), Dr. M. S. Henderson (also of the Mayo Clinic), Dr. Bean Lewis (an eminent American specialist and the editor of a wellknown publication) and Professor Saint (Professor of Surgery at the Cape Town University). The conference consisted of the function in connection with the opening of the new building and clinical meetings. The former was a very colourful and impressive ceremony. The latter comprised the presentation of papers on a variety of subjects by some of the world's authorities and operative demonstrations at different hospitals and at, the college itself again by eminent surgeons from all over the world. The papers covered a very wide range of surgical subjects, and a prominent part was taken by visiting delegates. "1 had a most interesting morning before leaving Melbourne," continued Dr. Wells. "At the invitation of Sir James Barrett, I went 30 miles into the country to inspect one of the hospitals administered by the Victorian Bush Nursing Association, of which Sir James is honorary secretary. The visit proved very instructive, fur I saw in operation a system which provides hospital accommodation and facilities in the outlying districts, the contributors of a small sum annually receiving thenhospital accommodation for surgical, medical and maternity cases at a fee of not more than £2 2s a week, the actual figure depending on the number or* contributors. The institutions are able to show a profit. Sir James is very enthusiastic about the principles of this organisation, and he says the association has been approached by many of the cities with regard to the establishment of hospitals even in the centres .on the same basis."

Commenting .on this system, Dr. Wells said he considered it a method of hospital administration which could well be given serious consideration even in New Zealand. The doctor had an interview with Dr. Mo ran, who recently toured the Dominion to report on radium treatment and malignant conditions generally, a subject which had received considerable attention throughout the whole conference. Together with other delegates, Dr. W'ells visited a number of hospitals in Sydney. Great interest was taken in the Alfred Hospital.