THE FUTURE DOCTOR.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18233, 18 November 1924, Page 12

THE FUTURE DOCTOR.

GROUP PARTNERSHIP. At Westminster Hospital, London, last month, a large gathering assembled to hear the session's introductory address by Mr H. J. • Waring (Dean of- the Faculty of Medicine, University of London), his subject being "The Medical Man of the Future." Mr Waring said two great processes were at work in medical investigation and treatment. The iirst- was that of specialisation. That extension was to a great degree inevitable, and up to a point it was welcome and desirable. But the process had its dangers,_ and one of them was that, the specialist tended to work in isolation, and was concentrating all his activities on the one particular brauch which he had made his own. Tke second outstanding feature in modern medicine was the recognition of fresh curative and ameliorative agencies and their continually extended employment. Gradually the forces of ail the sciences were being foeussed on the great task of curing or relieving suffering humanity. That development was destined" to revolutionise the practice of medicine and surgery. >The medical student of the future would have to spend more, and not less, time on the fundamental sciences.

As to what was going to be the cumulative effect of those two great developments, the answer was really the prognosis of the future of medicine. A patient in a large general hospital, the poor as well as the paying patient, had open to him larger, better facilities and resources than any patient outside, no mutter how rich or well-to-do he might be. Recognition of that fact was not confined to medical men; tho lay public had become increasingly aware of it. The investigation and treatment of disease required modern buildings and plant specially adapted for the purpose and a highly-trained personnel such as one would find in any modern successful factory. He envisaged an organisation of tiic medical profession in which co-operation, joint and united effort, would be tho systematised normal practice, and when a patient needing advice from a medical man would have brought to bear on his case all the resources for diagnosis and treatment which were at tho disposal of a great hospital. Dealing with the organisation of medical practice, he thought that in the big cities, and, in fact, in most urban areas, the medical man practising alone would gradually make way for the group, a partnership, or association. Our so-called "pharmaceutical chemists," who at tho present time were simply dispensers and compounders of medicines and vendors of innumerable "patent"nostrums, would bo available for the carrying out of many of the chemical investigations necessary in the elucidation of disease. Associated with eaeh group would be an institution for -the reception of patients which he might call "tho health institute" or hospital. Fees would be graduated according.to financial position. It would be linked up with other institutions of a similar nature, and with sanatoria up and down tho country, allowing of the treatment of patients in different climates and also of a .wider choice of specialists. On the question of the organisation of public health in the future, he urged that there was no justification for responsibility being divided among three or four departments of State. Various public services could be centralised, at any rate in the large* towns, and here was a subject in which the medical man could oestir himself with advantage. He did •not at present play the part which- he should do in public affairs.