Some Impressions of a New Medical School in Africa

department of Medicine in the Medical College of the University for one academic year. My first misgivings about the organisation I was to join came from the e*tremely vague and unbusinesslike way in which I | ^as called to this task, and from the obvious sense of fuddle which surrounded my appointment both before | arid after arrival. However, travel arrangements went smoothly and I was soon driven to a vast house on the ?dge of a swamp, although I had specifically stated that Wanted a small flat in the hospital compound. The Mistake was recitified within twenty-four hours and I J^as installed in the guest flat looking out over a green aWn dotted with palms and flowering trees, not far rom the Nurses' Training School and within five minxes walk of the hospital. My next surprise was to find that half the senior ^embers of my Deoartment were away; that a high ^portion of the Professors of other Departments were aWay, and that my predecessor had left two weeks preV|?usly without leaving me any form of note, letter or c?nfidential document about the running of the Department. All was to be revealed in due course, and I ^as going to have to work for it. No one volunteered of the information which would have been very 6|pful to an incoming head. I was later to learn that .:|'s "clammishness" is a Yoruba characteristic, and