MEDICAL PROFESSION

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 52, 10 September 1928, Page 11

MEDICAL PROFESSION

BRITAIN AND DOMINIONS KEEPING IX TOUCH (From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 27th July. Mr. Victor Bonncy, M.S., M.D., J3.Sc, F.E.C.S., F-.C.5.A., who attended the-conference of the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association at Hamilton us :i British delegate, writes interestingly in "The British Medical Journal" of his travels in the Dominion. He appeals for closer contact between medical men of this country and those of the Dominions. On the subject of hospitals Jie says:. "In the larger" towns there are finely equipped, big hospitals, also provided out of Government money, and certain of these are staffed, like our municipal infirmaries, by a paid superintendent and assistants under him, the local practitioners having no place in them; a bad system both for the profession and the community. The four capita) cities possess big general hospitals with complete honorary staffs. "For those of us who cling to the voluntary system, the drawbacks of State maintenance are well exemplified, for not only is private charity almost non-existent where hospitals are concerned, but, being State supported, there is a strong body of lay opinion in favour of anybody and everybody being eligible as patients. This exploitation of the doctor is being strongly combated by the profession, but it is in the difficult position of'one who, having got someone else to pay tlio piper, wants to call the tune. The easy route i'or obtaining medical ideals by getting the Government to pay for them is alluring to those impatient for such, but the price ultimately paid is the loss of autonomy and the selling of professional birthright." POST-GRADUATE STUDY. Mr. Bouncy also touches on the subject of post-graduate study. "The need to improve our post-graduate facilities," he says, "is very groat. Much admirable work has already been done by the Fellowship of Medicine, but we arc still far behind-hand. In the American and Continental clinics all the post-graduate work ;is under one roof, and classes, demonstrations, and courses in special work arc without difficulty and without delay at the service of those seeking them. The graduate from abroad is' deliberately catered for by well-organised arrangement, and, more than that, he is received with open arms as a visitor much to be desired, and all manners of kindness and hospitality are showered on him. London, with its widely spread hospitals and its multiplicity of staffs, is'admittedly a knotty problem from the point of view of post-graduate education, and the more so because all the larger hospitals have their own medical schools, and it is difficult to organise post-graduate clinics without interfering with the education of the students. The prime requirement is a large hospital devoted solely to postgraduate work, but pending this a great deal more could be done by concerted effort if only the urgent need of such effort, not merely for professional but for national reasons, was grasped by all concerned. ' "Finally, I want to press the importance of personal visits, not for the sake of what the best of us can tcaeh these brethren of ours, if it bo anything at all, but for tho sake of the gesture that tho visit implies. Many of us visit America and the Continent, but those great lands wherein lies the ultimate hope of our race have first claim >on us, and he who journeys out to them in interest and good-fellowship puts . another rivet in the great chain, and is an.ambassador needing no other credentials for his welcome than that he comes from 'Home.' "