ADVICE TO DOCTORS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLII, Issue 20493, 11 August 1936, Page 2

ADVICE TO DOCTORS

WINNING OVER PATIENTS Surgeons must possess a certain amount of low cunning, said Mr Bryan McFarland, a Liverpool orthopaedic surgeon, when speaking at the national conference on maternity and child welfare at Liverpool recently. His advice to young surgeons was to try varying methods of approach to difficult patients from different parts of the country. “Bet the Lancashire,” he said, “cajole the Welsh, frighten the Liverpudlian, reassure the Jew, and wheedle the Irishman.” Dr. Grace Owen, speaking on cooperation between home and nursery school, said a child’s growth could not proceed in tranquillity if we were subject, even unconsciously to himself, to antagonistic differences of attitude between his mother and father and teachers. Miss Nancy J. Quayle, formerly superintendent of the Children’s House Nursery School, Bow, suggested that there should be more “fathercraft” centres. “One of the greatest difficulties we have to tackle,” she said, “is trying to get fathers to take any really responsible part in their children’s care.” There were still too many fathers who replied to any demand for cooperation, “You see the missus. The kids are her look-out.” We know from experience,” said Miss Quayle, “that the protective colouring of wild animals is a poor technique compared with the average father’s ability to fade into the background at the approach of a social worker.”