MEDICAL PROFESSION

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 51, 1 March 1921, Page 7

MEDICAL PROFESSION

f BRITISH ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS.

(IT TELEGRAPH.—PRESS ASBOCIATIOS.J

NAPIER, 28th February

The annual meeting of the New Zealand branch of the British. Medical Association opened in Napier to-night, and will continue till, Friday. The proceed; ings are being conducted under the chairmanship of« the president, Dr. J. P. D. Leahy (Napier). . About fifty delegates are attending.

The Mayor accorded the delegates a civic reception.

In his presidential address Dr., J. P. D. Leahy made reference to the dearth of apprentices in various professions and trades, but remarked that quite the reverse was.'the case regarding-the medical profession, in. spite of the increased fees, deferred examinations, and the possibility of having to take a. six years' course. -

Dr. Leahy went on to say: "So far the main supplies of medical practitioners for this country have been necessarily drawn from the Home universities, but the Dominion and Australia will be getting more self-supplying as time goes on. Men wish to enter the university with a view of studying some profession —law, medicine', engineering, church, science, or. the academic study of literature. Literature is taken up mostly with a view-to entering the ranks of the schoolmasters. The profession as a rule! is poorly paid, ami contains few plums. Science as a means of making a livelihood is worse on account of the lower remuneration and the scarcity of openings, and there is no great inclination found to foster research •work. Engineering- i a only a little better. On the other hand; medicine and law, because people will always get sick and engage in litigation, offer a prospect of a decent living, with the added inducement of many plums. In all the schools, of course, the number of students lias been increased by men who saw service during the war, and who have gone back to finish their .^interrupted course. The number of graduates is, say, only about 40 per cent, or even less of the students who enter. Taking the Dunedin class figures, out of 200 student* who started in 1916, 28 graduated in 1920, and out of 22S who started in 1917 only 20 graduated in 1922, It would seetii'a very desirable thing if some method could be devised by which the unsuitable students wotild be weeded out early in theif'career before much hardship was incurred. For a medical student to find he is a misfit in the earlier years of his study and so be able- to choose- another vocation is far more desirable than for him to find it out, later, 1 when, without any special gift for medicine, but with luck and exceeding mercy on the part of the examiners, he has 'got towards the end of his .course, but then fails. It. is of the utmost importance that his risk of failing should be greater in the later years of the medical course, but. that also greatly increases the hardship. The difficulty of efficient clinical teaching is a much more serious problem. If real overcrowding does" occur it willnot raise the standard of medicine in New Zealand or anywhere else,. The university course, is only preparatory, and graduates are really far from being competent to practice without a year at least of residence in hospital. How are the increased number of gradutes to get hospital appointments? The great majority will become private practitioners."

In view of the foregoing facts, Dr. Leahy considered it important thai* something should be done to heln postgraduate education. His idea was that each hospital should be made a continuation school for medical men. Hospitals. h9 said, provided a means of studying accurate records of cases which was difficult to secure in private practice, unless a skilled nurse were present to observe the signs between the visits of the medical attendant. *It should be the ideal for every general practitioner at regular, interval's to be able to spend some time taking a "refresher" postgraduate course at a medical school or large hospital. Under present conditions this was not possible, as most medical men needed a regular holiday when they: could afford the time. It should, however, be possible for a medical man to see things demonstrated at an up-to-date local hospital at times wjien. without great inconvenience to himself, he could go there.

The president also urgefl the needl for greater interest in post-mortem work, and snpgested that ea-ch hospital should have its own anatomy room or museum, with a complete series of dissections, for use by medical men. also a pathological museum. Were hospitals brought up to the standard suggested, Dr. Leahy considered that there would be a splendid outlook for medicine in New Zealand. Ha wai confident that his suggestions wtce practicable.