HOSPITAL STAFFS

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 3919, 16 March 1929, Page 2

HOSPITAL STAFFS

THE DOCTORS’ VIEWPOINT. EFFICIENCY IN SURGERY. In an important address to the Hospital Boards’ Conference, Sir Louis Barnett (Otago) dealt with the question of the medical staffing of hospitals. He said that the “.policy of employing a minimum number of stipendiary officers to do all the surgical work at the larger hospitals .appears to be increasingly favoured Iby hospital boards in different parts of the Dominion. This policy, in the opinion of the College of Surgeons, is a bad one inasmuch as it must inevitably lead (1) to a stereotyped and unprogressive standard of surgery as practised in hospitals, and (2) to a lowering of the standard of surgery as practised outside .the hospital. To perpetuate the policy of the exclusion of a visiting staff from the larger hospitals,, in the opinion of the college, Would .be most unwise and fraught with all the ugly possibilities of incompetent surgery.” The College of Surgeons claims that the proper way and, with few exceptions, the only way to acquire the training and experience necessary to fit a medical practitioner for the responsibilities .of major surgical practice is by a long period of several years of surgical service in hospital, at first in a junior and later in a senior capacity. Only by the provision of adequate facilities for the obtaining of such surgical training and experience in the main hospitals is it possible for the community to be supplied with an adequate number of safe and efficient surgeons. Without such facilities major surgery could still be done and would still be done, but doctor's know and the public ought to know that in general sound and safe surgery cannot be expected under such limitations to efficiency. Therefore, continued Sir Louis it was resolved at the annual iniebting of New, Zealand fellows of the college held last month at Wellington that this deputation should wait upon the conference and explain how vitally important it is in the interest of the public welfare, that facilities be provided at public hospitals for the training of a sufficient number of competent surgeons to supply the needs of the community.

He requested consideration of the following recommendations, which the conference promised to give: (a) That facilities be provided at public hospitals for the training of an adequate number of competent and trustworthy surgeons to supply the needs of the community; (lb) \\lith tlnis end in view there should be appointed at every hospital of 100 or more beds, one junior or assistant surgeon for every 25 surgical beds in that hospital; (c) That these appointments should have a tenure of three years, the holders at the end of their term being eligible for re-election or promotion; (d) That hospital .boai'ds in dealing with applications for these appointments should seek the atlvice of a medical committee.”

Dr. D. S. Wylie (Palmerston N.) stated that Sir Louis Barrett had admirably .expressed opinions of the Australasian College of Surgeons regarding the question of hospital staffing and its importance in the production of sound and efficient surgery, not only for the hospital concerned, but for the community at large. The speaker intimated that he was not in favour of “one man hospitals,” .that was where the medical service consisted of one or more stipendiary officers who performed the entire professional Work of a hospital. He felt sure that the presence of a properly-organised body of medical men ink hospital of size was essential for the proper conduct of the clinical work of the hospital and for its professional progress. Dr. Wylie added that the regular medical inspection of all hospitals in the Dominion was an important matter.