HOSPITAL POLICY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21469, 18 April 1933, Page 10

HOSPITAL POLICY

MEDICAL STAFFING VISITING SYSTEM FAVOURED OPINIONS IN AUSTRALIA [I)Y TELEGRAPH —OWN CORRESPONDENT] WELLINGTON, Monday Hospital policy was a subject to which much attention was given at the conference of tho Royal Australasian College of Surgeons held at Sydney from April 10 to April 13. Sir Louis Barnott, vice-president of tho college, who returned to-day by tho Makura, stated that resolutions were passed indicating the adherence of the college to the following principles: — (1) In all questions of hospital policy, the interest of tho patient must bo placed first. The sick and injured must be well looked after and their ailments studied by their attendant doctors with a view to providing them with the most efficient treatment. (2) This necessary study must in itself be regarded as creating in tho hospital a centre for the attainment and for the advancement of surgical knowledge. (3) The public generally, both in and outside hospitals, should reap the benefit of tho knowledge thus acquired. All-round Benefits (4) Tho system of staffing on tho closed system, whereby ono paid medical officer is given the monopoly of tho wliolo of the surgical work in a largo hospital, should bo condemned, and the system of stalling with tho aid of visiting medical officers, honorary or paid, should bo perpetuated because (a) tho young practitioner in particular gains knowledge by seeing a largo amount of clinical material and by the supervision, advice, association and control of those senior to him; (b) patients receive better treatment through _ the consultations and team work of specially trained medical practitioners; (c) tho general public benefits by the experience gained by tho large staff of visiting medical officers; (d) the medical profession as a whole benefits by the dissemination of knowlcilgo gained by staffs of hospitals, and tho individual members of the visiting staff deservedly gain in prestige if their work is well and faithfully performed; (e) tho collective investigation of cancer cases, which should be a duty undertaken by all largo hospitals, cannot be satisfactorily organised without a visiting staff. Conditions in Australia " Tho one-man system of surgical staffing has been tried and found wantinrr in Australia," said Sir Louis, and alf but verv few of their larger hospitals are now run, and successfully run, on the visiting staff plan. It is so also in New Zealand, but at least four of our more important hospitals, Hamilton, Gisborne, Invercargill and Ashburton, still cling to the closed system of staffing, in spite of tho insistent appeals of the College of Surgeons to institute the desired reform. In the probable event of regrouping of hospital districts and grading hospitals for the purpose of providing more economic and more efficient surgical service, it would bo obviously impossible to classify these particular hospitals as of a high grade of efficiency." The problem of staffing was dealt with bv Professor Bell, of Otago University, who delivered the Syme oration at the conference and who also returned by tho Makura. He said that in tralia 'the one-man hospital had almost entirely disappeared. Ho had suggested in his address that hospitals in Jsew Zealand should be graded by representatives of the College of Surgeons acting under the authority of the Ministry of Health. This proposal met with the approval of tho council. GENERAL WORK OF COLLEGE GOOD PROGRESS REPORTED [ISY TELEGRAPH —OWN CORRESPONDENT] WELLINGTON, Monday "The Royal Australasian College of Surgeons has made gratifying progress since its foundation at Dunedin in February, 1927," said Sir Louis Barnett. vice-president of tho college, who returned by the Makura to-day after attending the sixth annual meeting of the college in Sydney. "It now numbers nearly 600 Fellows, of whom over 100 are oil the New Zealand register, and it has done, and is doing, much to raise tho standard of surgery, surgical education and efficiency in hospitals." The subjects covered a wide field, but tho greatest intorest was manifested in those dealing with cancer and its increasingly successful treatment with radium, X-rays, surgery of brain tumours, advantages and disadvantages of new and old methods of inducing anaesthesia, surgical treatment of lung diseases and surgery of bone diseases. A contribution from Zealand that aroused much interest was the annual report of tho committee engaged on tho collective investigation of the hydatid disease. It was anticipated that within a year or two full records of IUUU cases of hydatids occurring in New Zealand and Australia would be available for analysis.