DEMOCRATIC DOCTORS

Waikato Independent, Volume XIX, Issue 1892, 17 April 1917, Page 7

DEMOCRATIC DOCTORS

OTAGO MEDICAL STUDENTS. A BUGGESTION RESENTED. speaking at tke ■jponiug' of the new Medical Scnuol in Dunedin on Monday aiternoon, Dr. ijindo FergUson (Dean cf the Medical -Faculty) made some caustic lefercnce to a proposal recently put forward by the Minister of Public Health (the lion. G. W. Russell) i.o extend die bursary scheme to medic;u students in all stages of their course in order that the public should ce served by doctors drawn from ■ the democracy, and not from any single ciass. - According to the • ‘ ptago Daily times' " report, Dr. Ferguson commenced his refutation of the suggestion involved' in the Minister's proposal by remarking that one sometimes wondered if statements of this.'kind left as bad a taste in the mouth of the man who made them as it did in the case of tiiose who heard them. (Laughter.) It seemed to him that the Minister must have spoken with an inadequate knowledge of the conditions obtaining at the Otago School, where there was no such thiug as “class." There was no democracy so catholic as science, and if a man was seeking for the truth they did not .care whether he was a bishop or a blacksmith, and they were willing to help him and usist him in his search for knowledge to ike - heist of their ability. (Applause), in their classes they had had the children of all classes in the community—clergymen, lawyers, and doctors, commercial men, tradesmen, railway employees, jiplicem’eu, and many others. Ho did not know a more democratic body than their classes were, and many of the students assisted themselves by doing outside work, such as teaching, coaching* harvesting, or mining. • These men were not thought one bit the less of by their fellows, and were, thought a great deal more of by their teachers. (Loud applause). It was better that a man should rely on himself than on a State bursary. Ho was more likely to develop a greater degree ■of sympathy for his fellows and more likely to-help others, and in the end he would bo a better medical man for having learned his own strength. “The thing inferred by the Minister,continued Dr. Ferguson, “would ’never occur to us or to the students themselves if it wore not suggested by mischievous outsiders. We do our best to mould this heterogeneous lot of boys into a united class, and endeavour to make them efficient in a very highly specialised branch of work; The only criterion wc apply to a man is that >f efficiency and devotion to duty. A spirit of self-sacrifice in succouring others and a personal disregard of all danger and inconvenience just as a fireman lights a lire —that is the faith we try to inculcate, and I trust it is one that no outside would-be reformer will ever eradicate." (Applause.)