Otago Medical School

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31168, 19 September 1966, Page 16

Otago Medical School

Sir, —In your issue of September 5 you include a report of an address given by Dr. Sutch to a week-end school organised by the Auckland branch of the Library Association. In this address, amongst other things, he referred to the Otago Medical School, making the following statement: “Just look at the ignorant crowd they push in and out of the Otago Medical School.” It would be only fair to the Otago Medical School and to your readers if Dr. Sutch would be good enough to explain exactly to what inefficiency in medical training he refers.—Yours, etc., INTERESTED. September 12, 1966. [Dr. W. B. Sutch replies: “The address to the Library Association dealt with the educational deficiencies of those entering specialist trades and professions in New Zealand, and stressed. the need, recognised in older countries, for postponement of specialisation until after an adequate general education: for professional people this could mean, at university level, a course or degree in the humanities before proceeding -to the specialty. There may be deficiencies in the courses which specialists take at professional schools, but I made no mention of them in my address; nor were medical practitioners singled out as having any less basic education in the humanities than accountants, engineers, or science graduates. That is why I was surprised and pained to see the abovequoted sentence in a summary of what I said.”]