YOUNG DOCTORS WHO GO TO ENGLAND

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 249, 17 July 1937, Page 10

YOUNG DOCTORS WHO GO TO ENGLAND

Advisability Questioned

SPECIALISATION “MUCH OVER-RATED” Dominion Special Service. Auckland, July 16. The unwisdom of so many young New Zealand doctors going home to England to specialise and then returning to' find but little outlet for their talents was emphasised by Dr. Jefcoate Harbutt, who returned to Auckland by tlie Arawa from England after taking post-graduate courses at Queen Charlotte’s Hospital and the Samaritan Hospital in London.

The over-readiness of young doctors to go to England had many disadvantages, he'said, and affected the number of house surgeons available for New Zealand hospitals. “We are gradually setting up a class of medical practitioner who has become a specialist in England and who, after he returns to New Zealand, finds there is little for him to do in his particular branch,” commented Dr. Harbutt. “He finds it necessary to do work as a general practitioner and he may ultimately become a poor specialist and a poor general practitioner, largely because for some years he may not have done general work.

“The great' majority who come back cannot afford to sit down and wait for specialty practice to come because one gets one’s specialty practice through general practitioners. There is too great a tendency toward specialisation in New Zealand, with results I have mentioned.”

There were many hospitals in this country which required house surgeons but in lean years when there were few students who had graduated from Otago there were not sufficient to supply the need. In his opinion, instead of young doctors spending one year in hospitals they should stay two. This would mean adequate staffing of hospitals and tlie profession would not be overcrowded. The position now was that, after graduation, a young doctor spent a year in a New Zealand hospital, went to England and specialised for perhaps two, three or four years in, say, surgery, and returned with a fellowship as a first-class surgeon. He probably found there was not sufficient work for him to do because there were so many qualified men already established and he was obliged to do medical work with which he had not dealt for about three or four years. Almost inevitably he had wasted his time in England. “I think the idea of going home to England to do special work is very much over-rated,” concluded Dr. Harbutt.