HOSPITALS IN N.Z.

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25083, 15 January 1947, Page 6

HOSPITALS IN N.Z.

♦ VIEWS OF BRITISH GYNAECOLOGIST

ELECTION OF VISITING STAFFS

(P.A.) AUCKLAND, January 14. The New Zealand practice of electing visiting staffs of hospitals for periods of only two or three years was criticised, because it gave no security of tenure, by the distinguished British gynaecologist, Sir William Fletcher Shaw, in an interview before he left Auckland for Sydney. He said it was a complaint raised by New Zealand scholars he had met in Britain in 1939, and it had been confirmed by his visit to the Dominion. ‘♦l have been told that it is only rarely that a man fails to be reelected, but my visits to hospital centres convince me that it occurs sufficiently often to remove the feeling of security that is essential if a man has decided to devote his professional life to the service of that hospital,” Sir William Shaw said. “In Britain, it is usual to elept members of a visiting staff to a-certain age—6o or 65 years. Each member knows that his appointment is assured to that age unless- he gravely fails in his dU This scheme meant that a doctor could plan to do research work, and that he could take part in the development of his hospital, continued Sir William Shaw, and he could prepare a life’s work in research for the advancement of medicine. To depend for re-election every two years upon a hospital board composed chiefly of laymen, whose training did not qualify them to pass judgment upon medical work, gave~ a feeling of insecurity that was not good for a hospital and made a man hesitate to devote his whole life to a special branch of medicine.

Research Work The only criticism Sir William Shaw said he could make of New Zealand hospitals was the small amount of research work and investigation that was undertaken. He had seen evidence of none outside Dunedin, and he thought it was because hospital visiting staffs had no security of office. It was futile to begin work that might take many years when there was a possibility of an investigator being discarded at the end of two or three years. ’’New Zealand hospitals are experiencing the same growing pains that those in Britain passed through when I was young,” Sir Shaw said. Medicine had grown more and more into separate specialities, and special departments were being created m hospitals without New Zealanders being quite conscious of it. One essential was to realise that obstetrics and gynaecology were one indivisible subject, and that until they were treated as such women would be deprived pl the services of well-t.-ained specialists Sir William Shaw advocated that more direct responsibility should be given to assistant members of hospital visiting staffs. Nothing increased a young man’s mental stature like re. sponsibility, he said, and each assistant should have a few beds under his direct charge. \ He had seen many New Zealand hospitals, and they compared more than favourably with egtablishipents in Britain, many of which were now oldfashioned and required rebuilding. Sir William Shaw qdded that the general standard of medicine in New Zealand was particularly high because a large percentage of doctors had been overseas to gain further training and obtain high qualifications. He expressed a hope that this practice would not be discouraged by the fact tqat a young man could at present acquire a lucrative practice more quickly than his predecessors. That was caused largely by the shortage of doctors and would in time be rectified.