PACIFIC MEDICAL SCHOOL.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 306, 27 December 1928, Page 5

PACIFIC MEDICAL SCHOOL.

WORLD'S EYES ON FIJI,

IMPORTANT NEW MOVEMENT,

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SUVA, December 12,

Tile eves of the medical world will he upon Fiji when the Governor opens the r.ew Central Medical School in Suva this month.

By an arrangement between the Rockefeller Foundation and the Government of Fiji, the High Commissioner of the Western Pacific, the Kingdom of Tonga and New Zealand, as mandate for Samoa, a Central Medical School has lieen built on the grounds of the Suva War Memorial Hospital, with all accommodation necessary for the medical teaching staff and students who may wish to board. The school will be for all students who qualify from any of the countries as above. The need for vhat might be termed secondary medical teaching has been felt for some time, and the new school should more than meet the position. In the past Fiji has trained native medical students on a Ihree-vear term, but, while these men have done and are doing excellent work, a higher qualification has been found advisable. The course will be a threeyear one, and students will be admitted from 16 to 18 years old. The students will be trained free of all expense, and food, clothing, books, etc., will be supplied. Each student will receive 10/ monthly as pocket money. Immediately they qualify they will be sent to their island homes and start to practise at salaries ianging from £45 to £150 per annum. Where there is no fully qualified medical man they will be allowed to practise privately. The movement baa been made possible by the persistence of Dr. Lambert, whose repeated representations finally brought forth the financial help from the Foundation, ■which alone made the project possible. It is one of the biggest international medical experiments among native rfcees ever attempted, and its future will be watched with more than ordinary invest.