HOSPITAL DOCTORS

Evening Star, Issue 22209, 11 December 1935, Page 2

HOSPITAL DOCTORS

ACUTE SHORTAGE THIS YEAR MEDICAL EDUCATION FACILITIES MORE GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE SUGGESTED I Only 22 house surgeons to meet the request from hospitals for 40 will be available this year, which, Sir H. Lipdo Ferguson (Director of the Medical School) anticipates, will be the last in which the acute shortage will be felt. Urging the extension of teaching facilities in a report to the University Council yesterday, he said the increased Government aid necessary did not mean much more than the statutory grant of £6,000 per annum which the school had for some years, and would not represent “ anything like the total amount which the Government ought to provide for medical education.” The number of students in the school this year is 380, as against 364 a year ago. These numbers have been increasing steadily for some years past. In 1930 the number of students was 247; 1931, 260; 1932, 297; 1933, 345; 1934, 364; 1935, 380. In Sir Lindo’s report last year he indicated that the increase was straining the teaching resources . very seriously, and that the numbers entering on the class of physiology and anatomy for. this year had been limited after much negotiation with the Senate of the University of New Zealand to 60 last March. That restriction of numbers caused considerable discontent among those who _ were kept back, but under the' conditions then existing was unavoidable. Since then the Senate had sent a committee down to go into the question as to how the limitation of numbers could be removed, and the matter had been under very careful consideration during several months. It was finally decided that ■ if increased facilities were provided for clinical teaching in connection with the hospital and outpatient department, and additional staffing was provided for the laboratory departments, the limitation might be safely removed for next year; and, if the necessary expenditure was faced by the Government to enable the school to make greater use of the outpatient material for teaching purposes and additional teaching strength was given on the laboratory side, he confidently expected that the school would be able to take any number of students that were likely to offer for many years to come. The extra expenditure that the Government would be called upon to face involved a contribution of possibly £15,000 towards building lecture theatres and reorganisation of the outpatient department, and involved cooperation of the Hospital Board to the extent of perhaps another £IO,OOO. The extra staffing required in the laboratory department would involve an expenditure, which fell solely on the school, of perhaps £3,000 a year, calling for increased Government assistance. This increased Government aid, did not mean much more than the restoration of the statutory grant of £6,000 a year which the school had for some years, and £6,000 a year did not represent anything like the total amount which the Government ought to provide for medical education. GRANTS FOR ENGLAND, “ The British Government provides brants to medical schools throughout Britain aggregating a very large sum, probably well over £200,000 a year, and gives grants to individual schools very much in excess of the £3,500 which is all we are promised by the Education Department next year. The grant to St. Bartholomew’s School is £16,400 a year; to the London, £l3 950; the School of Medicine for Women, . £11,750; to St. Mary ■. £10,660; St. Thomas’s, £13,480; School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, £37 500; University College Medical School. £15,500. I quote these figures to indicate what expenditure is looked upon as being essential on schools in the Old World, and can quote figures if necessary showing that our total budget, including revenue from endowments and students’ fees, is not more than about 60 per cent, of the annual budgets of schools doing the same work as we are doing in the Old Country, and dealing with classes of students not much in excess of ours, and several of them smaller than ours. “ 1 cannot emphasise too strongly the urgency for pressing on the necessary additions to our teaching facilities in the hospital, as the entering class will, in two years’ time, be entering the hospital wards, and the necessary facilities must be provided before then unless the standard of the teaching is to suffer. We shall not know for some time yet what number of students will have to be dealt with next March as the results of the intermediate examination will not be available before Christmas, and the results of the special examination in February will not be available until the end of that month, while classes begin on March 2. Presumably with the passes of the intermediate and those who have dropped back a class, the classes in anatomy and physiology next March will be somewhere in the neighbourhood of 80 for the junior year. The council during the last year has recognised the necessity for increase in staff in the departments of anatomy and physiology, and by the appointment of Dr Edson as biochemical assistant in physiology has taken a step which had become absolutely essential. Dr Edson will not be able to take up his duties during 1936, and temporary arrangements have been made to carry on with two juniors during the coming year, but the work falling on the head of the department will be exceedingly heavy, and the staffing on a permanent basis of a first assistant on the experimental side, a position held by Dr Muriel Bell, a first assistant on the biochemical side to which Dr Edson has recently been appointed, each with a junior, should be arranged as soon as Suitable occupants for the positions can be found. In anatomy Dr Gowland requires extra assistance at a cost he estimates about £3OO a year.” CLASSES NEXT YEAR. The number who this month have passed .the first professional examination is 71. These, with 13 who have failed at the second professional examination and some others who have failed in one subject, will bring the class to 90 in bacteriology, and nearly as many in pathology. These departments should have immediate addition to their teaching strength, the director stated. The Department of Bacteriology and Public Health required similar staffing to the Department of Physiology, a full-time responsible assistant in Public Health, and one in 'Bacteriology, each with a junior. The number, of students jvould render triplication of glasses

necessary, and tills matter slionld be dealt with by the council without delay. SUPPLY OF HOUSE SURGEONS. The number of graduates during the 12 months had been 25 at the examination just completed, and six at the special last May, a total of 31 as against 36 the previous year. Of the 26 recent graduates four were being retained for teaching positions in the Departments of Anatomy and Physiology, leaving only 22 available for house surgeon appointments throughout the Dominion. As there were requests for nearly 40 house surgeons from different hospitals, the school obviously could not supply the demand in this direction, but with the large classes coming on it shall in a couple of years be unable to find house surgeon appointments for the numbers graduating, and in view of the fact that the General Medical Council was urging the necessity for resident appointments being held before entering on practice it was quite conceivable that in the next few years the school would be asking the hospitals to take a larger number of men than they were doing at present. It was eminently unsatisfactory that fluctuations in numbers should create either a dearth or a plethora, but these fluctuations which were so embarrassing to the school and to other schools were due to economic conditions beyond their control. , “ This year, I take it, will be the last in which the acute shortage of house surgeons will make itself felt, as the class entering on their sixth year in March numbers 45,” stated Sir Lindo.