MEDICAL STUDENTS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2973, 16 January 1917, Page 4

MEDICAL STUDENTS

DOMINION'S' NEED OF DOCTORS. The studonts in training at the Otago Jtedical School are to spend some days at Awapuni Camp shortly, for thn purpose of becoming acquainted with tho training given to the ambulance drafts for tho New Zealand Forces and thn hospital ships. Theso students are not permitted to enlist in the Expeditionary Forces, since the Defence and Public Health authorities' are strongly of opiuion that the supply of doctors should bo conserved and extended by all available means in view of tho heavy war losses and the reduced attend- . ances at medical schools in the United Kingdom and elsewhere during tho war period. Speaking to a DosnNroy reporter yesterday, Surgeon-General Henderson, Director of Medical Service, who returned on Suuday froni a visit to the south, emphasised tho importance of the work being done at the Otago Medical School. Ho said that tho standard of training was very high, eyon in parison with the courses given in tl»<>. medical schools of tho Old Country, and it was most desirable that all the students now in attendance should complete their courses and take their diplomas. Tho war. had entailed a serious drain upon the 'medical profession,- and it had had the further effeot of checking the training of medical students in the United Kingdom, where some of tho classes had been reduced almost to vanishing point. The result would bo felt in years to come, when young doctors would not be available in normal numbers, and Now Zealand probably would be dependent upon its own output of medical men, since there would bo no surplus in Britain. \