GERMAN JEW DOCTORS

Evening Star, Issue 22973, 2 June 1938, Page 10

GERMAN JEW DOCTORS

GUARDING AGAINST INFLUX MEDICAL COUNCIL WATCHING POSITION GOULD FORBID THEM TO PRACTICE HERE “ If there is any threat of a largo influx of foreign doctors into the Dominion swamping the medical profession here, tho Medical Council of New Zealand will cl.,'inly have to consider the position,” said Dr W. Newlands (president of the council), to the ‘ Star ’ today. ‘‘The council could either require them to complete the entire course of six years in the Dominion or bar them from practising altogether.” Dr Newlands was commenting on the steps that were being taken by the council to regulate the flow into New Zealand of doctors of German Jew extraction who have been expelled from Germany as the result of the drastic Hitler purge. Many of them hope to be able to practise their profession in Australia, where there is a provision to be contained in the new Medical Practitioners Bill by the State Government of New South Wales that foreign medical graduates, to obtain registration in New South Wales, must, in addition to holding a foreign degree from a recognised university, complete the fourth, fifth, and sixth year medical courses, as prescribed by the University of Sydney. The position in New Zealand, said Dr Newlands, was already the same as was proposed there. The Medical Council of New Zealand decided two years ago to require the attendance of these refugees from Germany at the Otago Medical 'School for three years, and the passing of the corresponding three examinations before they were admitted to the New Zealand register. “ Prior to that,” he said, “ the foreign doctor ivas required to attend the Medical School and sit the final year’s examinations, and at present there are four doctors in the Dominion on the register under those conditions. It was thought that a stiffening of the qualifications of three years would prevent any gigat number of applications for practising here, but since then there have been several _ of these foreign doctors entering the country to study and then qualify (according to those terms.” He added that as he understood it, neither Australia nor Africa would at present allow them to practise there unless they had been registered by a British licensing body. As far as New Zealand was concerned, entry was determined by the Customs Department, which, as in the case of any alien, could refuse to issue a permit. Questioned whether these restrictions governing alien medical men were applied not only for the purpose of protecting the profession in the Dominion, but also for maintaining a high standard of practice, Dr Newlands stressed that many of these German Jew doctors bad excellent credentials, many of them graduating at famous Continental universities. At the same time, however, he said that doctors who graduated at the Otago Medical School and had post-graduate experience in England for two years, were equal to the best' medical men that any university produced. Dr 0. E. Hercus (dean of the Otago Medical School) did not comment on any course that might be taken _to guard against the possibility of foreign practitioners entering the Dominion in great numbers, but outlined the conditions they had to fulfil at. the school before they were allowed to practise.