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EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.
[July 21, 1939
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charge of the Hospital Pathologist, who since 1935 has been appointed Professor of Pathology in the College, and so directly linked up with the teaching. A comprehensive systematic and practical course is provided. Next year a series of weekly lecture- demonstrations is to be provided for fifth and sixth-year students. The students attend at the Tan Tock Seng Hospital mortuary daily for a period of one month for instruction in post-mortem technique. Each student performs about twenty post-mortem examinations under supervision of the Demonstrator in Pathology, and makes notes on what he has seen and done. Specimens of four or five tissues are taken at each autopsy and are sent to the Pathological Laboratory for examination and demonstration to students. There are, on an average, three post-mortems a day, which include medico-legal cases to which the attention of students taking Medical Jurisprudence is drawn.
23. The Pathology building was undergoing complete recon- struction during my visit. It is to be enlarged and improved to provide better accommodation for routine hospital work as well as for teaching purposes. The Hospital Pathologist is also Lecturer in Forensic Medicine, and accommodation is to be provided in the enlarged building for housing medico-legal specimens, a measure which should assist in stimulating more interest in this subject.
24. Public Health and Hygiene. In the Reports of 1926 and again in 1934 I referred to the necessity of developing a College department for Public Health and Hygiene, not only for the instruction of students and for the advancement of preventive medicine, but also as evidence of the recognition of the importance of the subject to the health of the individual and the community, and to the prosperity of the country.
25. So far as the teaching of students is concerned, it is gratifying to record that a beginning has been made. A Public Health Museum has now been initiated, with a number of exhibits, drawings, and diagrams received from the Royal Sanitary Institute, London, which during 1939 is to be accommodated in the College of Medicine. I have hopes that this is the first stage of a College Department of Hygiene first suggested in 1926 as "urgently required.”
July 21, 1939]
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.
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26. The course of instruction has been completely reorganised by the Chief Health Officer, Singapore, who, with the generous co-operation of the various municipal departments, has planned a course of lectures, demonstrations, and practical field instruction in rural areas far in advance of anything observed on previous visits. Included in the training is a health survey in villages undertaken by each student in the vacation, the object of which is to awaken interest in the ideals of prevention and to afford to the student an insight into the opportunities for service in the field of hygiene. For women students it is proposed to provide a modified field survey dealing more intimately with rural maternity and child welfare work.
In no subject did I observe such a marked change as compared with 1934.
27. Medicine and Surgery. Instruction in Medicine and Surgery is organised as in 1934, and is given partly at the General Hospital and partly at Tan Tock Seng Hospital.
Both are Government Hospitals under the administration of the Director of Medical Services.
The General Hospital is situated in the hospital area close to the College of Medicine, students' hostels, staff residences, and nursing quarters. It has 901 beds, is fully equipped, and has a specialist and assistant staff drawn from the Government Medical Service. Medical and surgical cases of all kinds are admitted, classified as first, second, and third classes according to the rates of payment. There are also special departments for Diseases of Children, of the Eye, and of the Ear, Nose, and Throat, of the Skin, for Radiology, and for Venereal Diseases. There are 547 third class patients-medical and surgical, 372 male and 175 female-most of whom can afford to pay a small daily con- tribution.
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28. The Tan Tock Seng Hospital is a free" hospital utilised for sick poor, usually of a decrepit or pauper type. No females or children are admitted. Patients are attended by ward orderlies. It is situated four miles from the General Hospital and College of Medicine. The number of beds is 700, located in a series of separate one-storied wards.
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