MEDICAL STUDENTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22213, 16 March 1934, Page 10

MEDICAL STUDENTS

LIMITATION NOT FAVOURED THE OPINIONS OF DOCTORS “ I do not think the number should be limited. All the world over for years this has gone in cycles and in the end things even themselves up,” said Dr P. Stanley Foster when a Christchurch Press reporter asked him if he thought that too many students were entering upon the medical course at the University of Otago. Dr Foster said it was found that in good years students were much more numerous than in lean years. For instance, after the war there were enormous classes at the medical school for a few years, but they gradually tarred off, until now there were hardly enough doctors coming on to staff the hospitals. During the last year or two there had been an increase in the number of students, and he knew that the university authorities in Dunedin were taking some steps to control the numbers coming forward. For instance, if students did not come up to a certain standard in the first year or two they were put out. The first years were, in a sort of way, competitive. However, the law of supply and demand seemed to operate fairly well.

Asked if be thought there should be a special entrance examination for students intending to embark on the medical course, apart from the ordinary university entrance examination, as had been suggested by one medical professor. Dr Foster said he did not think it was feasible, and he did not see any necessity for it. The medical course was « long and arduous one, and a fair proportion of the students dropped out before they had gone very far. Dr R. R. D. Milligan said he thought the number of students taking up medicine was a matter of public policy. However, he understood that accommodation in some of the laboratories at the medical school, especially in the second year, was limited, and that that was one of the reasons that was put forward for limiting the number of students. In his opinion 'academic qualifications should be the only grounds on which a weeding out policy should be adopted. He did not know any group of examiners who had the opportunities of learning all there was to know about a student, and who were sufficiently wise to decide on who should be selected to carry on with his studies except on the one standard of academic qualification.