FIJI IS TRAINING NATIVE DOCTORS

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26127, 1 June 1950, Page 4

FIJI IS TRAINING NATIVE DOCTORS

ISLAND MEDICINE

[By a Staff Correspondent of the “Sydney Morning Herald"} (Reprinted by Arrangement)

Four hundred dark-skinned native doctors to carry the endless battle against disease into the remotest villages of Papua and New Guinea—that is the dream of hard-working, hardbitten, 39-year-old John Gunther, Director of Health for Australia’s island territories. That dream is making its first modest move into reality in -the Fiji Governments Central Medical School at Suva, where, 2000 miles from their home villages, six hand-picked young Papuan and New Guinea natives are pioneering Dr. Gunther’s ambitious , plans. To bring them to full fruition may require a period of 20 years. The Australian Government will shortly have to decide whether to establisn its own medical school in New Guinea. or to send a greatly increased number of students to the Suva colI lege. At present. Australia simply pays its I students’ lees. But if the Central I Medical School were asked to underi lake large-scale training of New Gui- ’ nea student-doctors, the Common- ' wealth would almost certainly be rej quired to shoulder part of the runI ning expenses of the school and generally share the overall cost. Leprosy Treatment The Suva college, which Dr. Gunther inspected recently, must be the most remarkable medical school in the woT’d. Its only students are South Sea island natives, and the first six months of lhe curriculum has to be devoted to bringing their English up to a point at which they can understand standard medical textbooks. Fellow-students of the six New Guinea medical pioneers are Fijians. FijiIndians. Tongans, Samoans. Cook Islanders, Gilbert and Ellice Islanders, New Hebrideans, Nauruan??, and Union Islanders —a pretty complete cross-section of the peoples of the tropical South Seas. They will spend four years at the school. A year is devoted to practical and theoretical classes in anatomy and physiology, then in the final two and a half years they spend every morning gaining practical experience at Fiji’s Colonial War Memorial Hospital. They are allotted cases for treatment under the guidance of hospital medical officers. They Itelp in the operating theatre, and are trained in obstetric work and infant welfare. Public health activities such as sanitation and food inspection play an important part in their training. In the out-patient department of the hospital they pay special attention to the type of case they are most likely to encounter in their home islands. After graduation some of the students go to the Fiji Leprosy Hospital on Makogai Island for a special course in the diagnosis and treatment of leprosy—one of the greatest scourges of the South Seas. High Standards Reached' Although the school does not aim to provide a complete medical course by European standards, ihe standards reached are high. Graduates have shown themselves capable of undertaking advanced medical treatment, and have performed major amputations without hesitation. Some of the graduates go in for specialist training. Two Fijians have completed a special course of trainin'. 1 in Britain in the treatment of tuberculosis and are now playing a big pari in the anti-T.B. campaign in Fiji

Others have made specialised studies of eye diseases, flliariasis, and anaesthesia. Their title on graduation is Assistant Medical Practitioner (usually abbreviated to A.M.P.) and they can practise only as Government officers in Government services. As far as possible the idea is that these A.M.P.’s should work under the supervision of fully-qualified European medical officers. But distances are groat and communications are poor in many parts of the Pacific, and Central Medical School graduates in more isolated places have often had to carry on for I months and sometimes even for years without outside help or advice, running hospitals and uispensar.es, holding regular clinics and making public health inspections, giving r ,en ral medical treatment, and carrying out surgery. Because A.M.P.’s are available, medical attention is provided in a great many islands of the South Seas where, owing to considerations of distance and cost, there would otherwise be none. Fight Against Superstition The graduates, be. ng themselves islanders, have been able to do a great deal in the difficult task of persuading the native peoples to abandon magic and witch-doctors in favour of modern health practices. Discussing their early difficulties, a leading Fijian chief. Ratu Sir Lala I Sukuna, said: “Once the novelty of i their appointments had worn off there was a long struggle against superstition—a struggle which is by no means 1 over yet. Through the centuries before the introduction of new diseases the Fijians and others had grown accustomed to quick cures. ’ "In their treatment of new and varied diseases of which the islanders i knew nothing these native practition- ■ ers were judged by their ability to ; cure quickly, and there were naturally many disappointments.” I Even to-day. and even amongst the • ' most highly educated natives, there is [ I a sneaking regard for magical pracI tices and cures. In many more iso--1 1 lated communities, as delegates to Ihe I South Pacific Conference pointed out, : natives still secretly regard disease as • the result of the ill-will of an enemy, | and. even when native medicine is proscribed by law, tend to consult the 1 I witch-doctors secretly. Difficulties Faced j Many of the graduates of the Cen- , i tral Medical Schoo], especially the ’ proud and highly intelligent. Samoans 1 I and Tongans. resent not being able to r graduate at full medical standard, to ! call themselves doctors, and to praci tise privately outside the Government ’service. - ' To meet this demand for higher I education, which is clamant in many 7 parts of the South Seas, far-thinking men like Dr. Gunther and the Gover- ' ! nor of Fiji. Sir Brian Freeston, look to ■ i the day when a university of the 5 i South Seas will be set up. where natives can graduate in all the faculties. t ! Of such a university, the Central - | Medical School might well be the , ] nucleus. - 1 The principal difficulties faced in - bringing natives to a high professional 1 standard are. according to the medical r school authorities, defects in their I basic education and lack of early retraining in reasoning and deduction, e but with patience and time these can

Standards, of course, vary from territory to territory, depending on how far education is advanced.