Good Progress In Doctors’ Appeal

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30542, 10 September 1964, Page 13

Good Progress In Doctors ’ Appeal

A gift of £lOOO and two of £5OO were among contributions of £5962 7s to the Royal Australasian College of Physicians’ “March of Medicine” appeal announced yesterday at a luncheon in support <rf the appeal. The luncheon was arranged by the chairman of the North Canterbury Hospital Board (Dr. L- C. L. Averill) and attended by businessmen, physicians and hospital board members and staff. The chairman of the Canterbury and South Canterbury area appeal committee (Mr J. A. White) announced the contributions, which also included three gifts of £250 and more than a dozen of £lOO or more. The £lOOO gift was from Gough, Gough, and Hamer, Ltd., and the two of £5OO from the Philip Brown Charitable Trust and Mr P. H. Vickery. The half-way mark to the national target of £76,000 had now been passed, Mr White said, although the appeal was only a month bld. The magnitude of the response was, he thought, a good indication of the public’s awareness of the importance of improving the research facilities available to physicians in New Zealand hospitals. Mr White said he sympathised with the community over the number of appeals for good causes, but he asked for priorities to be considered. Everyone would require the services of the medical profession in some form, and the appeal must result in raising the general standard of medical practice, not only by the physicians. The medical superintend-ent-in-chief to the board (Dr. L. McH. Berry), a surgeon, said the facilities sought by the college through the ap-

peal must be provided. “If we don’t, we won’t get the best people back from overseas,” he said. He emphasised the importance of the scientific approach —intelligent observation, followed by asking why. But this approach was not in pure science only—it had to be translated to clinical terms. Nor was it impersonal, for in the end the patient would benefit—not necessarily this year, but with the accumulation of knowledge. It was possible, said Dr. Berry, to provide in Christchurch facilities in medicine which would enable this city to lead New Zealand and make an impression on world thought in the specialty.