Royal Victoria Hospital research fellowships.

FOR NEARLY one hundred and fifty years a member of staff of the Royal Victoria Hospital has been asked to give an address to mark the commencement of the hospital year, and to welcome new students to their clinical work. Today it is my turn to be so honoured and I am aware, not only of the privilege conferred on me by my colleagues in entrusting me with this duty, but also of the responsibilities and difficulties that the task imposes. It is made no easier by my recollection of many past speakers and the qualities of learning, wisdom and wit which they displayed. Some were truly vintage performances, but alas, I fear, that through my own inadequacies 1972 will definitely be a non-vintage year. My first duty, and a very pleasant one, is to welcome those of you who have just arrived at hospital and are commencing your third year in medicine. We give you a special word of greeting and encouragement as you enter this strange new world of hospital medicine. You have shed the sheltered academic life, but I hope you have retained the knowledge which diligent teachers have imparted to you in preparation for this transformation. Now you will come into direct contact with your fellow human beings, many of whom will be sick, suffering pain or dying. In a short space of time you will experience man's whole life-span from birth to death and the tribulations, sorrows, fears, despair, joys and triumphs that face him between these events. You will learn to treat diseases and how to give hope and encouragement to those that have them. In all this you must realise that you are heavily handicapped in your process of learning and understanding. As healthy young men and women it is difficult for you to step into other men's shoes unless you have had a close or personal experience of illness and pain and the emotions that go with them. Only by a very conscious and determined exercise of your imagination can you hope to overcome it. I urge you to cultivate this assiduously if you are to become good doctors. And by good I don't necessarily mean successful. Perhaps at no time in its history has medicine been subjected to greater changes or stresses than in recent years. Similar changes are taking place throughout the Western world and this is especially true in our own community. Old values are being challenged. The worth of new values is uncertain. Standards of behaviour, of individual freedom and the acceptance of authority are all under scrutiny and these affect your generation with particular urgency. The doctor now has to work in an atmosphere of constant questioning and publicity. In the near future you will have a health-service commissioner or medical ombudsman leaning over your shoulder. Nowadays more, much more, is demanded of the medical and nursing professions than ever before. More scientific knowledge, more heroic surgery, more sophisticated medicine, entail higher standards of qualification and specialist training. In our concern for these worthy objectives we may be in danger of forgetting the essential welfare of the patient. This is the ever-continuing dilemma. Technical knowledge