MEDICAL SPECIALISTS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 127, 21 February 1908, Page 6

MEDICAL SPECIALISTS.

Next month the Hospital Trustees will be called on to appoint the honorary medical staff at Wellington Hospital for a period of two years. . The occasion is one of some concern, to. the medical fraternity as well, as to the general public.- As a rule there are a great many candidates-offering forthe. few "positions, and the' Trustee's' experience some. difficulty in making a selection. We are not .aware of the practice followed by the. Trustees,'but we would suggest that in one respect at' least there is room for improvement. It has been the custom , in ' the past, to appoint one specialist, to deal .with diseases of the eye, nose, ear, and throat., This ■ may. have been necessary in the early days of the 1 institution's existence when Wellington was little more than a village, and specialists were sciirce, but the lumping together of these specialities nowadays is, a relic of the. past which might well be abandoned with advantage. It is time, that the:work connected' with : the eye was' separated from that of the nose, ear, and throat. In. Great Britain, and on the Continent, the speciality of the eye is seldom, if ever, assocmtedl with diseases,of .the ear, nose, and throat; and in-some of the colonial hospitals, Auckland, for instance, tho same separation is made. As specialists are-available in Wellington, and as the appointment.,of ; an extra honorary specialist' to 'deal; only with the diseases of 'the eye would entail no further cost-writhe-' Trustees, there is very, good : reason: for, urging -that the example set elsewhere should ,be followed here. We commend the matter to the consideration of tlie Trustees with every confidence of its meeting with' their approval.