MEDICAL SCHOOL

Hokitika Guardian, 25 February 1933, Page 6

MEDICAL SCHOOL

AVAIKATO VOICES 'CRITICISM

SIR. UNDO FERGUSON’S REPLY

DUNEDIN, February 22. At a • meeting of the University Council to-day, the Dean of the Aledical Faculty,' Sir Undo Ferguson, replied to a statement by Dr M. M. Hocken, medical superintendent of the AVaikato Hospital, “That young men are not going in for medicine as they used to.”

Sir Undo Ferguson said it was particularly undesirable that uninformed and irresponsible statements bearing on medical education should find their way into the press. He said that they had 297 names on the class rolls at the end of last year as against 204 lor 1928, and this year it as probable that the numbers would be larger.

He referred to the demand for house surgeons which had grown enormously within the last 15 or 20 years, and referred to the educational advantages of supplying these hospitals with students. Dr llocken’s suggestion that the sub-Doan had advised young graduates' not to go to Hamilton was entirely without foundation. Last October and at a later date the Waikato Hosipfeal Board had been asked what number of house surgeons it required, and on neither occasion was a reply received. . “The year after next,” %Sir Undo Ferguson concluded, “we shall probably have more graduates than are necessary, and for the next three or four years this state of affairs will, continue, but nothing is more likely to disorganise our arrangements for the future than publicity of the typo which the AVaikato hoard lias thrust upon us.”