Doctors’ Reputation For Service “Endangered”

Press, Volume C, Issue 29436, 11 February 1961, Page 12

Doctors’ Reputation For Service “Endangered”

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, February 10. The wonderful reputation for selfless service built up by the medical profession in New Zealand in the pioneering days and in war time was being endangered by the socialisation of medicine, said Mr Kenneth MacCormick, of Auckland, today. Mr MacCormick, a prominent surgeon, was Director of Medical Services of the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force in the Middle East from 1939 to 1943, and is a pastpresident of the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association.

The years between the two world wars had brought great changes, he said in a memorial address to the British Medical Association conference.

Intrusion of the State into medicine had begun to obscure the need for selfless medical service.

“Is it too much to hope.” he said, “that we as a profession may hold to that spirit of service which was once as conspicuous in peace time as it had been in war time? Can we with assurance claim that same reputation today?” The pioneer doctors in New Zealand, Mr MacCormick said, endured great hardships and

showed courage and devotion to duty. They regarded it as their duty to answer every summons.

That same spirit of service prevailed in 1914, when the decision to volunteer was a natural one. When the Second World War came it was no longer a simple matter of answering duty’s call. It was necessary to get the permission of a board.

“I do not say this was wrong, but it was definitely cramping to the spirit of voluntary service,” he said. In the years since the last war, the cramping of that spirit had continued. Voluntary service and a measure of self-sacrifice were no longer an essential part of the doctor’s daily life. The doctor’s role was circumscribed. A combination of factors in socialised medicine had reduced the opportunities and the apparent need for voluntary medical service, Mr MacCormick said.

“I do not suggest that today doctors give more mechanical service, but I believe that there is urgent need to counter a trend away from voluntary service and to remind ourselves that the reputation of our profession depends as much on selflessness as on skill. Often the two go together.”