accept these obligations would be dropped from the program under
honorable conditions.”
All but six or seven medical and dental students agreed to go to
Suva and on January 25, 1951, 54 of them departed Guam for Honolulu by a chartered Transocean Airlines plane and the overflow,three
Samoans, came in via MATS. After a brief stopover in Honolulu,
where they were briefed by Trust Territory personnel, they continued
on to Suva.
The Transocean plane arrived at Nadi, Fiji, on January
26 and a Pan American flight, carrying the Samoans, on February 3.
Awaiting them at Suva was the HiComTerPacls Staff Anthropologist, Lieutenant Commander Philip Drucker, USNR, who had been
sent ahead to investigate the situation, make arrangements for their
arrival, and assist in their adjustment to a new environment. Conditions at the school were understandably “abnormal”so that there was
little chance to observe its normal functioning, but Commander
Drucker considered that the training would be competent and adequate. He recommendedthat: (1) special classes be conducted temporarily for the Trust Territory students because of their lack of
facility in English; (2) an allowance of five dollars a month be patd
them instead of the one pound allowed the other students; (3) the
Trust Territory administration affiliate itself with the South Pacific
Health Service so that it could be represented on the South Pacific
Health Service Board; (4) the students not be allowed to feel they had
been sent away and then forgotten by the administration."'
Scholastically, Commander Drucker noted:
In comparing the course provided in Guam with that obtaining at the
Central Medical School (CMS), Suva, it is noted that the academic year in
Guam commences in July as opposed to January in Fiji, also the first year
of the curriculum at Guam has been devoted entirely to English and mathe-
matics for 12 months: and science (six months) has not been commenced
untul the second year, whereas at the Central Medical School the first year
students receive six months science and six months anatomy and physiology.
One other difference in the course is that students at Guam have been receiving hospttal experience for 114 years whereas Central Medical School
students have 2% years hospital experience included in their curriculum.
The above differences have been carefully examined and the adjustment
between the two curricula will not be too difficult.
Tt appears that students from the Trust Territory have not attained the
same standard of general education from preliminary schooling as that
* HiComTerPacls msy of 16 Jan 51,
“ Staff Anthropologist memodtd 5 Feb 51.
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