149
150
Specialist Teach-
ing.
16
(ii) that adequate provision should be made to enable students to live, for periods, close to the Hospital, so that they may be available for training in emergency and casualty work.
26. University teachers are conscious that we have inadequate provision for teaching in Children's Diseases, Infectious Diseases, Mental Diseases, Orthopaedic Surgery: and that in a few years additional provision will be necessary for Ear, Nose and Throat Surgery. The University is not, and never will be, in a position to employ full-time specialist teachers in all branches of Medicine and Surgery. Specialist teaching can only be developed with the aid of officers of the Government Medical Department or of private practitioners. The tendency of the Colonial Medical Service is to recruit more and more specialists and this, in time, is bound to strengthen medical teaching here; but in so small a Colony the process will be slow and partial. The possibility of subsidiary help from private practitioners was considered. Medical and surgical specialism in the English sense is not yet established but recently there have been indications that if hospital facilities could be given a few specialists might be willing to work here, observing the British conventions of con- sulting practice. The system under which teach- ing is done by honorary officers in hospitals, can hardly be expected to work satisfactorily in Hong Kong where the major University teaching and hospital appointments are held by salaried professors and lecturers.
If private practitioners
are to give time to work in the hospitals and the University they, like Government Medical Officers, will have to be paid honoraria. Were the specialism indicated above all done by Government officers receiving honoraria on the present basis the cost would be $7,500. If, however, private practi- tioners were employed, this amount would have to be increased to compensate them for the loss of professional earnings and the cost could hardly be less than $25,000. But a serious obstacle in the way of the employment of private practitioners as specialist teachers is that they have not, at present, right of access to Government hospitals. recommend that Government should be asked to allot beds for specialist teaching to practitioners
We
4
Biochem- istry.
Post-
17
who may be willing to accept part-time posts in the University, the condition of their University appointment being that they follow the British conventions of specialist and consulting practice. Failing an arrangement with Government, the University should consider the possibility of esta- blishing special divisions in Medicine and Surgery in a non-Government hospital.
27. For adequate teaching in branches of Physiology and Pathology, as well as for better diagnostic work in the University Clinics at the Queen Mary Hospital, provision for Biochemistry is essential. We therefore recommend the appoint- ment of a suitable Chinese medical graduate of this University, after training in Great Britain, as a lecturer in Biochemistry in the Physiology Department. Over a long period, the average cost of the appointment would be $5,500 a year. The annual cost of maintenance of the laboratory, for teaching and for diagnosis, would be about $7,000.
28. (i) We are agreed on the need for a Graduate limited provision for post-graduate teaching, aim- Teach- ing partly at the supply of specialists for employ- ing and
ment in Chinese medical schools, partly to meet Scholar- the desires of our own graduates who are in practice ships. in Hong Kong and elsewhere.
(ii) In order that the head of each Medical Department should have time effectively to supervise post-graduate work, he would require an additional assistant. In the end, therefore, 6 new appoint- ments, at an average cost of $4,400 a year, would be necessary;
The a total, finally, of $26,400. cost of additional provision for maintenance of laboratories and departments would depend on the nature of the work undertaken, but a sum of about $10,000 a year would be required.
(iii) To enable the best medical graduates of this University to acquire specialist status, we are of opinion that at least two years experience of a British hospital and medical school would be necessary. It is obvious that the University is in no position to establish such post-graduate scholar- ships at present. We recommend that an appeal for provision for post-graduate scholarships should be made to one or other of the Trusts which have