OBSTETRICAL TRAINING

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 126, 25 February 1928, Page 25

OBSTETRICAL TRAINING

WIDER KNOWLEDGE URGED DOCTORS DISCUSS PROBLEM 1 Bi’ Telegraph.—press association. Hamilton, February 23. The necessity for wider knowledge among doctors, nurses, and the lay public relative to childbirth was emphasised before the British Medical Association Conference to-day. Mr. Victor Bonney, the eminent Louden surgeon, in an address on puerperal sepsis, said the subject had been so much before the public in the past few years that it had been studied with great care and detail by the medical profession. There were paths of infection in anv surgical operation. Firstly, extrinsic due to infection from without by the lack of asepsis on the part of the surgeon in the proper preparation of the theatre, or failure to render the surface of a patient free from bacterial contamination; secondly, intrinsic or infection from within the tissues of the patient. The difficulty of rendering a patient unlikely to become infected from without varied according to the part of rhe patient to be operated upon. With few exceptions tins could now be accomplished under modern surgical procedure. The question of dealing with intrinsic infection was much more difficult, and was far from being completely solved. A vast amount of work had been done to try to solve the problem by bacteriological research, but so far the variety of organisation concerned in the nroduction of puerperal sepsis had not afforded the profession very much help beyond the fact that strepto coccus of one sort or another was the organism most likely to cause disastrous results.

Ihe problem of solving this great question of septicoemia, following childbirth, was one that could only be tackled when one and all endeavoured to make their obstetrical operations as near the ideal of the surgical operation as possible. This ideal was impossible to obtain to the full, but the more the medical profession, the nursing profession, and, lastly, but not least, the lay public, realise their responsibility in making sure that all mothers approached their confinement in the best possible state of health, the better, Dr. Riley, professor of obstetrics in Dunedin, pointed out that the Health Department could help by providing better teaching facilities for students at Otago University. Dr. North, professor of gynaecology in Dunedin, urged upon the "meeting the necessity for making the bringing of children into the world “a palace beautiful, instead of a house grim with suspicion and fear.” It was in the achievement of such a result that mothers in New Zealand would regain confidence. With the presence of Mr. Bonney in New Zealand to stimulate interest in this subject, they could but hope that the teaching of obstetrics would be made thorough and practical. The speaker pointed out how in the past twenty years £13,000 had been poured into university coffers to aid in teaching medicine and surgerv, whereas not a penny had been received for obstetrical training. Dr. I racy .Inglis (Auckland) stressed the point that a patient left for a considerable length of time without assistance was much more likely to develop some slight puerperal sepsis than one who received well-judged assistance from their medical practitioner. He urged upon doctors to make certain that patients approaching childbirth must lave l an B er oi dental infection removed. The old bogev associated in the minds of dentists and the lav public that teeth must not be touched during pregnancy must be “scotched” ence for all.

Mr Bonney, m reply, stated the great problem really resolved itself into a matter of education of the people as to their own responsibility, but the medical practitioners of New' Zealand would do tlieir best to help them.