LOSS TO DOMINION

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20087, 6 November 1939, Page 11

LOSS TO DOMINION

OBSTETRICAL STUDENTS

SCHOLARSHIPS ABUSED

ONLY ONE RETURNED

(Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, this day,

Under scholarships endowed by the women of New Zealand, 11 New Zealand obstetrical students of outstanding promise have gone abroad for training since 1928. Only one has returned to practise obstetrics and the treatment of women’s diseases in the Dominion.

Three of the latest scholars are still in process of completing English training, said Dr. Doris Gordon, of Stratford, secretary of the New Zealand Obstetrical and Gynaecological Society, who has returned to New Zealand after 12 months’ absence overseas. She was deputed by the society to interview New Zealand students who have preferred to remain in England. “The executive is gravely concerned,” she said, “because the scholarships are failing in their foundation purpose to bring back to the Dominion doctors highly trained in all the recent advances of women’s disorders and obstetricians thoroughly conversant with all modern methods of pain relief in labour.” Dr. Gordon added that under the new terms of the scholarship the students would proceed first to a women’s hospital in Melbourne and afterwards to England, where they would find their title “New Zealand obstetrical scholar” an open sesame to the most coveted residential posts in England. “The failure to return is akin to Ihe failure of Rhodes Scholars to return, with the difference that in this instance the endowment was given by thousands of humble New Zealand women to better the lot of the mothers in the Dominion who succeed them,” she said. “It appears that the money given is merely being used to provide England with specialists.” Two courses of remedial action had presented themselves to the society, said Dr. Gordon. The first, and most logical, was to abolish certain obsolete conditions prevailing in New Zealand, and the second was to make it compulsory for scholarship students to return to New Zealand.