Anatomy of a medical school

What makes a medical school? Certainly not bricks and mortar, essential though they be. People and ever more people, yes. Knowing what to teach and how to teach it, yes. An adjacent hospital, certainly. Partnership with Government, certainly. And, importantly, a host academic institution and a supportive community within which to flourish. The 10,000th graduate of the Otago Medical School was capped in December 2006. Since the 1970s, it has in fact been three schools, based in Dunedin, Christchurch and Wellington. Its graduates include many distinguished researchers and practitioners all over the world. Modelled on the Edinburgh School, and operating within a relatively new university, the Otago School had a long struggle for resources in a country that was still establishing its home economy. Often only the vision and determination of individual staff carried it forward. And the world in which it operated kept changing, with several revolutions in medicine, technology, and society.