NEW ZEALAND DOCTORS

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20248, 17 July 1937, Page 4

NEW ZEALAND DOCTORS

I TOO MUCH SPECIALISATION. ; INSUFFICIENT HOUSE SURGEONS. (Special to Times.) AUCKLAND, Saturday. “We are gradually setting up a class of medical practitioner who has become a specialist In England, and who, after he returns to New Zealand, finds there is little for him to do in his particular branch,” said Dr. J. Harbutt, who returned to Auckland yesterday from England after undergoing postgraduate courses. “He finds it necessary to do work as a general practitioner, and he may ultimately become a poor specialist and a poor general practitioner, largely because for some years he may not have done general work. “The great majority who come back cannot afford to sit down and wait for a specialist's practice to come, because one gets such a practice through general practitioners. There Is too great a tendency toward specialisation in New Zealand,” he added. There were many hospitals In New Zealand which required house surgeons, but in years when there were few students who had graduated from Otago there were not sufficient surgeons to supply the need. Instead of young doctors spending one year in hospitals, they should stay for two years. This would mean adequate staffing of hospitals, and the profession would not be overcrowded.