MEDICAL BURSARIES

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 69, 16 December 1918, Page 6

MEDICAL BURSARIES

FREE TRAINING FOR YOUNG MEN

LOCAL BODIES INVITED TO ASSIST Cabinet has approved of eight additional medical bursaries being granted for the coming year at Otago University, under the terms that have obtained during the last two years. These terms provide that the bursars on graduation shall be attached either to one of tho larger hospitals of the Dominion as assistant house-surgeon for two years, or to some branch of the State medical service. The Minister of Public Health (Hon. O. W. Russell), when announcing these new bursaries, said that it was intended to make a new departure during the year by granting ten dental bursaries, which would be held at the Otago University. Each bursary would be worth .£SO, and tiie selection' would be so made as to encourage students from a distance tovjtake up dental (mining. The bursaries would extend for four years', and students would be required to agree to devote to the service either of tho Education Department or of Hie Public Health Department one',year for each, year during which the bursary was held. The Minister 'Staled that many of the hospital boards were willing to adopt the proposal he had placed before thorn for the establishment of denial wards, but the difficulty was the obtaining of trained men. The scheme he was now instituting would provide, at the end of four years, a steady outflow of ten State dentists annually from the university, ~and he hoped that this supply would make it possible lo provide tho dental treatment required' by tho children of,the Dominion; ; A very imuortnnt clause of the Public Health Amendment Act just passed by Parliament, added the. Minister, gave authority to any local body to assist in the establishment nnd maintenance of bursaries for medical and dental students at any college affiliated with the New Zealand University. He proposed to direct the attention of the local authorities to the powers conferred upon them by this clause, with a view to encouraging them to establish bursaries at Otago University for both medical and dental students. He saw no reason whatever why under tho scheme city councils, borough councils, county councils, and town boards should not assist students from their own districts to taJie up bursaries, with a condition that tho young men aild women should take up work later in the districts that had provided their training. "By this means," said 'Mr. Russell, "the'medical nnd dental services can be enormously strengthened within a few years, while the exceedingly fine_ dental college which has been established at Otago University will have an adequate supply of students. 1 his college in the past has suffered from a shortage of students."