PROPOSED COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 175, 21 April 1937, Page 17

PROPOSED COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS

Building in Sydney TO INCLUDE NEW ZEALAND AND AUSTRALIA An Australasian College of Physicians is being formed to do for medicine what the Royal Australian College of Surgeons has so successfully done for surgery since its foundation some few years ago. Modelled upon the lines of the Royal College of Physicians of England, it will include both Australia and New Zealand. Among its objects is the management of post-graduate study in medicine and the requiring from candidates of evidence that they have given intensive .study to the advances in knowledge in medicine that have taken place since their graduation. Regular scientific meetings will be held at which the latest discoveries will be discussed, and in this way the most recent knowledge will be propagated throughout the profession. It was determined at a meeting of representative physicians from New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia that Sydney should be the site of the college. To bring the college into being it is necessary to find funds in the Australian States and in New Zealand. A committee consisting of Sir Charles Bickerton Blackburn, Sir John McKelvey, Messrs. A. C. Davidson, M. Mcllraith and F. Packer was formed at a meeting of citizens held in the Lord Mayor’s room at the Town Hall, Sydney, and it was decided to proceed with the raising of funds for a building. The Government of New South Wales offered to provide £25,000 toward the foundation of the college, and the University of Sydney offered a site within the precincts of the university on which a building could be erected.

However, it was decided by the committee of physicians that it would be more suitable to have the college in a central position in the city of Sydney. An opportunity presented itself when the old home of the Warrigal Club, Macquarie Street, Sydney, was for sale and the committee negotiated for the purchase of this building. It is considered that the situation is ideal for the requirements of the college, which will now have its home in the centre of the foremost medical activities of the State. Certain Victorian donors have signified their intention of providing at least £20,000 to initiate a fund for the permanent endowment of the college, when completed. Considerable progress has been made in raising further sums of money for alterations to the building and for the provision and maintenance of the college when its activities commence. It is felt that the foundation of the College of Physicians will be of great benefit to Australia and to New Zealand by the advancement of higher medical education throughout the Oonjmonwealth and the Dominion, and especially by affording ampler opportunity for and stimulus to post-graduate study. The need for such an opportunity has long been stressed by practitioners who have been unable to go abroad. There will be close ties between the new college, the Hospitals Commission of New South Wales, and the Charities Board of Victoria, to .strengthen the standard of honorary service on city and. base hospitals scattered widely throughout the Australian States.

In Australia, Victoria has already contributed generously and is still doing so, and movements are being initiated in the other Australian States and in New Zealand.