MEDICAL EDUCATION

Hokitika Guardian, 2 July 1930, Page 6

MEDICAL EDUCATION

GREAT CHANGES IN AMERICA

WELLINGTON, Juno ,30

Great changes have occurred' in tlie medical profession in tlie United States, said Dr. Evarts Graham", who arrived in Wellington by the Maktira. Dr. Graham, who is Professor of Surgery at the Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, is on his way to Melbourne to give a series of post-graduate lectures under the auspices of the British Medical Association.

“There has been a great change in medical education in America' in'itlie last 15 or 20 years,” said Dr. Gfahariri “This is due very largely to the work of the Rockfellor foundation which lias picked out certain medical schools' iii strategic places, and financed them heavily. This has enabled the . better medical schools to have more full time men on' their 'staffs, that is, men who. are not .engaged in private; practice/ but who devote themselves tot.teaching and medical research. This has bad .an .extremely honelicial effect, not only 'upon the .medical professicxjri, but upon the whole community, because the medical schools of America, are turning out better doctors than they ever did before.” There was a tremendous demand to enter the medical schools in the United estates, said Dr Graham. Tlie result was the Universities were able t/> exercise selection of the most qualified men. Most doctors in the United States wore University graduates, and' after graduating they gained further training while resident at a hospital for a.t least a year. Women are not entering the field of rpedicine in the United States in such numbers as they did in the British Isles. It was difficult for them to got into practice beyond such positions as school doctors, and they comprised only about 5 per cent, of the students in the medical schools.