Medical School Plans Defended

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32032, 5 July 1969, Page 46

Medical School Plans Defended

(N.Z. Press Association)

DUNEDIN, July 4.

The Wellington and Manawatu branches of 'the Medical Association of New Zealand had ; apparently not fully grasped that the amount of clinical teaching in Dunedin had to be reduced because of the limited number of patients in Dunedin hospitals, the ViceChancellor of the University of Otago (Dr R. M. Williams) said today.

“It should surely be obvious that the major recommendation of the Christie report, namely that a second clinical school should be established outside Dunedin,

was based on recognition of that fact. “Yet the statement from the Wellington and Manawatu branches of the Medical Association of New Zealand suggests that this has not been fully grasped.” The two branches said that the recommendation took no account of the “absurdity of training two-thirds of New Zealand’s doctors in Dunedin with a small population already in great difficulty providing clinical training for half the proposed expansion.”

In his statement, Dr Williams said: “The limited number of patients presents no problems in the pre-clini-cal years (up to the end of the third year), and all this teaching will continue at Dunedin. The arrangement is quite acceptable to the preclinical teachers.

“The present proposal to

spread the fourth-year and fifth-year teaching between Dunedin and Christchurch and the sixth-year teaching among Wellington, Dunedin and Christchurch makes good use of excellent branch faculties already established in Wellington and Christchurch. It is expected that the number of sixth-year students at Wellington will increase from the present figure of 25 to about 60 in 1973, and to 70 a few years later. “This will certainly involve the expansion and strengthening of the facilities in Wellington and give the medical profession there the opportunity to take a full part in advanced medical education.” Dr Williams said that while moving from centre to centre did present some practical problems, it also offered some real academic advantages, and it was misleading to quote the extreme example of the Wellington studL

ent doing his first year in Wellington, the next two years in Dunedin, and so on. “In fact the great bulk of medical students now do their intermediate year in Dunedin,” he said. “Finally, the argument that medical schools have to be small is simply no longer acceptable in the modem world. Naturally the nice, cosy atmosphere in a small faculty is very pleasant, but it is a luxury that practically no country is now able to afford, certainly not' New Zealand.” Dr Williams said the Todd report oh medical education in the United Kingdom, published last year, said that the provision of complex and expensive facilities required in a medical school in the future could not be economically justified for those with an annual intake of less than 150 to 200 students.