Abdominal injuries.

hospitals realized which cases they should transfer immediately. In most cases it takes no more than two hours to move a patient from any hospital to a major centre, and it is in this area of improved transport of a patient to the major centres that the greatest improvement in our treatment could be achieved. A railway ambulance car would help more than any other single thing in an island such as ours. One of the problems that always besets teachers is to know what the student should be taught. I think that the basis of what we should teach every student, certainly as far as trauma is concerned, is what every doctor should know. Whether he be a general surgeon or physician or gynaecologist or orthopaedic surgeon, there are certain basic principles in treatment of patients which all of us should know and that is what should be implanted in our students quite firmly. We have to resist the tendency to try and make them into miniature specialists or replicas of ourselves. The next important area where knowledge should lead to wisdom is that of continuing education. The student must be made to realize from the very beginning that all his teachers are trying to do is to set him on a course which he will continue for the rest of his life-namely, self-education. This implies the attendance at meetings and regular medical conferences. It is unfortunate that those who attend conferences really need to attend least. It is those who do not like going, who seldom read their journals, and are rapidly out of date, and then are afraid to go in to meet their peers because it is obvious that their knowlege is poor, who debase the standard of patient care. The thought that I would like to leave with you is contained in a verse from Couper: