COLLEGE OF SURGEONS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 54, 1 September 1926, Page 8

COLLEGE OF SURGEONS

FOR.AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND

IMPORTANT STEPS BEING TAKEN

(By Telegraph.)

(Special to "the Evening Poit")

AUCKLAND, This Day.

Australia and New Zealand are to have a College of Surgeons, which will appoint Fellows to advance the study of the science and art of surgery, provide libraries, museums, laboratories, and journals, and elevate the practice of surgery. A convention of prominent medical men, among them Dr. Herbert, of New Zealand, has lately been sitting in Sydney to arrange the preliminary details of the scheme, so that the Australasian Medical Congress may bo able formally to inaugurate the college when it meets in Dunediu. next yeai\ . ■

Tho proposal, which has been discussed widely in tho CommonAvbalth and the Dominion • during the last 18 months, gaining the support of most' of the prominent practitioners, was first outlined by Dr. Barnett, Professor of Surgery at. the University of Otago, when the Medical Congress sat in Brisbane six years ago. Since it has been taken up by the medical men in .Victoria. Among tliem is Sir George Syme, who probably will be tho first president.

The general opinion seems to be, says a correspondent of tho "Herald," that the institution should build on a framework of all that is best in the throe royal colleges of London, Edinburgh, and Ireland, and tho features that give a solid practical advantage to the American system which embraces Canada, the United States, and South America. The new college will, of course, have to handle immediately many intricate problems, among them no doubt tho omnipresent difficulties of giving a surgical service to the scattered populations of Australia and New Zealand, and of keeping more closoly in touch with modern medical thought in Britain and America.

In its first sitting of four hours the convention choso from 120 • volunteers 40 men who will l)e asked to found tho college. They are all prominent practitioners in Now Zealand or Australia.