Medical school in wider context

While Dr Dorothy Page was researching the history of the University of Otago medical school for her new book, she came across some fascinating characters. Elspeth McLean reports.

• Excerpt from the book  [2]

While Dr Dorothy Page did not get many surprises from her research into the history of the University of Otago medical school, she did find she came to like some of the characters in the story more than she would have expected.

Surprises were limited because her history Anatomy of a Medical School - A history of medicine at the University of Otago, 1875-2000 is the third history of the school.

The others were "insider" or "top-down" histories written by influential men in the establishment.

A former head of the history department at the University of Otago, Dr Page, who worked on the more than 400-page book following her retirement in 2000, said one of her aims with the history had been to provide greater context for the school in a variety of ways.

These included its place in the university.

The medical school was part of the university but at times almost separate from it and hostile to it.

There was also its relationship with local and central government, its local community, the development of medicine and changing concepts of education.

Among the characters Dr Page found admirable was the first dean of the school, John Scott, who, for the first 27 years of his tenure, was the sole professor at the fledgling school and did everything himself, " both for reasons of economy and temperament".

Although he was not a warm character, his students regarded him with a real, if wary, affection.

He used his own artistic skill to save money, producing "superlative" anatomical drawings for use in his teaching.

He was friends with Frances Hodgkins and a leading light of the Dunedin art community, influential in setting up the Dunedin Public Art Gallery.

Two characters who complemented each other well and were remembered with much affection by their students were John Malcolm and William Gowland, who taught the preclinical curriculum together for about 30 years until 1943.

Dr Page said Malcolm was small, shy and quiet, whereas Gowland was a larger-than-life character with a store of racy stories, most deemed not suitable for inclusion in the book.

He was also skilled at casual teaching in the dissection room.

The style of early teaching was not generally to Dr Page's liking.

One of the things she found most objectionable about it was the deep-seated, long-lasting and withering sarcasm which was common.

Dr Page was particularly interested in the students, both from the point of view of the enormous change in size of the student body and the much greater diversity among its members which had developed over the years.

The first generation of students were "lads of European descent" whose parents had enough money to send them to finish the last two years of the course overseas because Otago could only offer a two-year course.

Many of the students went to Edinburgh University for the last part of their course in the early years of the school and it was not until 1887 there was an " entirely local graduate".

(An edited version of her section on women is reproduced below.)Dr Page sees more books within the book she has written, but says it would take somebody younger to write them.

Among the areas for further consideration would be books on different disciplines and on medical students and their influence on the general student body.

They presided over the students' association for many years.

She does not expect that her book will suit everybody.

There was too much information and too many people and, in the end, it was a matter of giving examples and people "may or may not agree with examples given".

Dr Page's next work is something rather different.

She is setting aside a couple of years to delve into the history of the Presbyterian Otago Southland Foundation Trust board, which dealt with church property.