Christchurch doctor to teach in Singapore

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32560, 20 March 1971, Page 18

Christchurch doctor to teach in Singapore

Dr D. W. Beaven, head of the teaching and research unit at Princess Margaret Hospital, would visit Singapore in May for some weeks as part of a team assisting in the teaching of postgraduate students, the vicepresident of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (Dr J. D. Willis) said yesterday. The college yesterday finished a two-day scientific meeting at Christchurch Hospital. Dr Willis said that the college had taken an active role in the teaching of medicine in South-East Asia, particularly Singapore and Fiji. Dr Beaven was going to Singapore on a project supported by Commonwealth governments and the New Zealand Government under a Colombo Plan scheme to help with post-graduate training. Most of the team would be from Australia. Dr Willis said that as a result of the programme in Singapore in the past a number of Singapore graduates had been admitted by examination to membership of college.

It was appropriate that Dr Beaven was going this year in view of the increasing medical teaching which Christchurch Hospital would be involved in soon with the building of the new medical centre. A physician was also sent for one month each year to teach at the Colonial War Memorial Hospital in Suva, and the last to go was Dr J. A. K. Cuningham, a Christchurch neurologist. His visit was highly successful, said Dr Willis.

This project was supported by the Commonwealth Foundation and supported by the New Zealand committee of the college. It was begun at the request of the Fijian medical authorities.