Medical School Entrants

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31761, 19 August 1968, Page 16

Medical School Entrants

Sir, —I notice from a news report this morning that only 60 of the 238 students applying for entry to Auckland’s new Medical School for 1969 can be accepted. As the

country is desperately short of doctors, and the school is a brand-new one, who was responsible for this particular blunder?—Yours, etc., TAXPAYER. August 2, 1968. [Professor C. Lewis, Dean of the Auckland School of Medicine, replies: “The planned intake in March of this year was 60. Last year 264 applications were received and the majority of these were from persons of high scholastic calibre. The admission figure will remain at a maximum of 60 until additional facilities are available —in particular the erection of the human sciences building on the main university campus, and this is likely to be completed during 1972. It will then be possible to raise the number of entrants substantially—to a figure which will guarantee an output of 100 doctors at the completion of the medical course in Auckland. Stage I of the preclinical building is in the process of erection on the Park Road site opposite the main Auckland Hospital and the second stage of this building will be required for the larger intake of students a year after completion of the human sciences building. The total number of applicants for admission to the school in the next academic year is 244. The group of students already receiving instruction may be expected to qualify for their medical degrees in November, 1973, and will require at least a year of further training before they will be in a position to help in the relief of the shortage of medical practitioners which the country is likely to face in the 19705.”]