British Aid to Medical Schools in Developing Countries

If the British allocation for overseas aid is increased more generous agreements could be made with host universities and with expatriate staff. It would greatly stimulate overseas service by specialist trainees if the professional colleges and the universities agreed that they would be willing to substitute in their training programmes a year or two of service in an overseas medical school for one or more of their orthodox appointments. Consideration might be given by the councils for postgraduate education to ways of facilitating service overseas by specialist trainees and young consultants. The suggestion of the Royal Commission for the expansion of departmental staff establishments and training pools requires that the temporary expatriate occupying a supernumerary post is absorbed into the establishment on his return. While this may be done now in individual cases by personal arrangement a national agreement between universities and the N.H.S. would be necessary for these secondments to be made on the large scale commensurate to the need.For other returning young doctors not yet in specialist training schemes an assurance that applications for appointments by those who had worked in developing countries would receive favourable weighting, by both university and N.H.S. selection committees, would be very helpful.     

International Medical Aid

Knowledge of the intricacies of child growth and development and the complexities of family and community dynamics are invaluable for an adequate appraisal of the health needs of the child and for a responsible discharge of professional service. An attempt to incorporate these principles into a medical curriculum is illustrated by a specific method of teaching preventive pediatrics successfully employed over the past five years at the University of British Columbia. First-year students are assigned families and instructed and supervised in observation, examination and interviewing techniques relevant to the normal child. The second-year program is focused on specific individual and family problems of interpersonal relations and elaborates on counselling and other preventive techniques. Research projects are undertaken by the students. By the third year the program is integrated into the tradetional hospital setting, with additive exposure to the functioning of community health and welfare services.