G.P.s Study Rota Plan

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30325, 28 December 1963, Page 10

G.P.s Study Rota Plan

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, December 27. Doctors in many parts of New Zealand, it is understood, are looking into the possibilities of a scheme to integrate the medical services of general practitioners. The idea is that groups of doctors should work together so that each in turn would take over the emergency and off-dutv responsibilities of all the other members of the group. Advocated by the Wellington faculty of the College of General Practitioners following a lengthy study of all aspects of general practice, the scheme was outlined in an article published in the

November issue of the “New Zealand Medical Journal.” The author, a Wellington physician, said that New Zealanders had a growing awareness of what medicine could offer to those who were < ill, but the population was increasing at a greater rate than that of graduates entering general practice. Less Attractive The medical student was “less and less attracted to general practice, regarding it as dull arduous and not fitting to his special training.” His attitudes were frequently not being corrected by his teachers, many of whom claimed that the community’s needs could be better provided by the specialist or teams of specialists. The author pointed out that in two countries where there had been a temporary eclipse of the general practitioner it was often found that hospitals were crowded with pati-

ents who should never have been admitted. Once there, their stay was often lengthened because of the lack of adequate care at home. In New Zealand, he said, essential and immediate medical service to the community would be strengthened by a simple organisation within the present framework, such as the proposed rota system. The patient, while still retaining his own doctor for general purposes, could have the immediate emergency service it was his right to demand. With a sharing of responsibility, the general practitioner would have “the enormous advantage of greater personal freedom for himself and his family.” It would give him regular off-duty hours, opportunities to participate more readily in post-graduate courses and’ relief when sick or on reaching semi-retirement.