THE FUTURE DOCTOR.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 6 December 1924, Page 2

THE FUTURE DOCTOR.

GROUP PAR'i’NESSHIP. At Westminster Hospital, London, last, month, a large gathering assembled to hear the Session’s introductory address hy Mi 1 . H. J. "Waring (Bean of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Londo'h), his subjet being “The Medical ,Man . of the Future.”

Mr.. Waring said two great processes were at work in medical investigation and treatment. The first was that of specialisation. That extension was to a great degree inevitable, and up to a point it was welcome arid dbsji’able. But the process had its dangers, and one of them was that the • specialist tended- to work in isolation, and was concentrating ail his activities on the one. particular branch which he had made liis own. The second outstanding feature in modern medicine was the recognition of fresh curative , and ameliorative agencies . and their, continually extended employment. Gradually the forces of all the. sciences were being focussed on the great task of cuting or relieving suffering humanity. Thaft development was destined to revolutionise the practice of medicine arid Surgery, The medical student of the future would have to spend more, and not less, time on the fundamental sciences.

As to what was, going to be the cumulative effect of those two great developments, the answer wa_s really the prognosis of the future of, medicine, A patient iri a large general hospital, the poor as well as the paying patient, had open to him larger, better facilities and resources than any patient outside, no matter bow rich or well-to-do he might be. Recognition of that fact -was not confined to medical men; the lay public had becoriie .increasingly aware of it-. The investigation' and treatment of disease required modern buildings and plant specially adapted for the ,purpose and a highly-trained personnel such as one would find in any modern successful factory. Heenvisaged an organisation of the medical profession in which co-operation, joint and united effort, would he the systematised normal practice, and when a patient needihg advice from a medical man would have brought to bear on his case all the resources for diagnosis arid treatment which were at the disposal of a great hospital. Dealing with the organisation of medicaL practice, he thought that in the big cities, and in fact, in most. urban areas, the , medical man practising alone would gradually make way for the group, a partnership, or association. Our so-called “pharmaceutical chemists,” who are., at the present time were simply dispensers and compounders of medicines and veildors of innumerable “patent” nostrums, would be available for the carrying out of many of the chemical investigations necessary in the elucidation of disease Associated with each group would be an , institution for the reception of patients which he might call “the health institute” or hospital. Fees I would be graduated according to financial position.. It would be linked up with other institutions of a similar nature, and with sanatoria up and down the country, allowing of the organisation of public health in the . he urged that there was no justification for resoonsibilitv being divided among three or four" departments of State. Various public services could be centralised at any rate in the larger towns, and here was a subject in which the medical man could bestir himself with advantage. He did not at present play the part which he should do in public affairs.