New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1910-09-12
MEDICAL EDUCATION AGAIN.

Tie latest number OF 1.-The Lancet,
which is devoted 10 the subject Of medi-
cal and surgical education as students
number" affords i suggestive com
ulent UPON the recent controversy in this
country over the standard of medical
education ID various schools and uni
versities. and indicates that in the
United Kingdom a standard prevails
which warrants by example insistence
upon the highest standards which the
best American Institutions have set up.
Only q few Years ago our medical col
legcs We're generally granting the NJ. d.
diploma 10 students of two years stand
Ing who had begun with little if any
more than q grammar school education.
Now a four years course is generally
required, for which practically all repll-
table institutions exact q preparation
equal TO that required for Il college of
liberal arts. while q large proportion re-
qujre two years of actual college work.
ard at least one makes the completion
81 {, 9 college course and the receipt of
the baccalaureate degree necessary for
entrance. Let us compare this with the
British system.
The General Council OF Medical Edu-
cation and Registration. which has in
charge the registration of students and
practitioners. the prescribing of stand
ards Of scholarship and the removal
from the register of practitioners guilty
OF professionally infamous conduct, re-
quires for entrance upon course OF
medical study a rigorous examination
about equal 10 that which is here re-
quired for entrance 10 college There
after there must be Eve years of study
before the first, or baccalaureate. degree
ia medicine is granted. and further study
and examination for the doctors degree.
There are in the United Kingdom
twenty-five universities and other bodies
which the General Council recognizes as
competent to register, examine and grad
Uate medical students. and most of them
council. Thus Oxford gives the NJ u.
degree only 10 those who have taken the
4. e. degree and thereafter have given
thirty-nine terms, or thirteen years, to
university study. Cambridge gives the
bachelors degree in medicine after five
and the doctors after eight years of
medical study. London University re-
quires five and "A half years for NJ r.
and two more for NJ. D. Durham de-
mands five years for NJ. B. and two years
of subsequent practice for NJ. ID. Biz
mingham and Manchester are content
with nothing less than five years for the
first degree and grant the second year
later.
These facts are Il reminder Of the de-
cided difference between the degree of
Al ID. ia Great Britain and in America.
Here II is granted at once TO the medf-
cal graduate without a preliminary bac
calaureate degree. and possession of it is
generally if not universally prerequisite
to engaging il independent practice of
tIIe profession. In the United Kingdom.
on the contrary, there is q baccalaureate
degree in medicine, and the doctors de-
gree is not essential to practice. Indeed,
We believe that many competent and
even eminent practitioners never receive
II or certainly never make the common
use Of it which prevails IN this title
loving country The appropriate compari-
sou is therefore between the British NJ
L and the American II L, and il ap-