Reports by deputations of Branch Medical Council for Scotland appointed to visit the examination for medical degrees and licenses in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen.

Date:
[1865]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Reports by deputations of Branch Medical Council for Scotland appointed to visit the examination for medical degrees and licenses in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    By the kindness of the Medical Faculty of the University, we were furnished with a complete set of the printed questions which had been placed before the candidates at the April and July written examinations — appended to our Eeport (No. IV.) In the written examinations, three hours are allowed for each of the nine subjects. The oral examination at which we had the jdeasure of being present, was the first professional only. It commenced at three p.m. and lasted until five, recommenced at six and terminated at eight. It was conducted at tables, one beiug devoted to each subject, two and often more examiners being present at each table. Each candidate was on an average examined for about fifteen minutes on Botany, Che- mistry, and Materia Medica, and for about tvyeu^y minutes on the other subjects. It is a rule with the Medical Faculty that when a candidate has got the mark of opthne (in the system of marks to be explained hereafter) on all the subjects of the written examination, he is not subjected to an oral examination at all. It occurred to us to see two candidates exempted in this way. No one who has had much practice in examining can fail to be struck with the disparity between the written and oral examination of the same candidate in not a few cases, a circumstance which seems to us to render it desirable that both methods of testing the acquirements of candidates should in every case be employed. We i^ierely remark this in passing as a subject deserving of consideration. One peculiar'ity in the distribution of the subjects for the fii'st and second professional examination struck us very forcibly. In Aberdeen, Materia Medica is included in the list of subjects for the first examination, com- ing thus at an earlier period than the examination on Practice of Medicine and Surgery. It is evident that by this arrangement the examination must necessarily be confined to the Natural Histoiy and Elementary Chemistry of Drugs, and that no examination on Therapeutics can take place, and that, consequently, unless this deficiency be supplemented by the Professors of Medicine and Surgery at the second examination, the stu- dent's knowledge of this important department of his profession will never be tested by examination at all. We found, on inquiry, that this arrange- ment was ordered by an ordinance of the University Commissioners, and is much objected to by the present excellent Professor, Dr. Harvey. In conversation with that gentleman, he suggested several plans for remedy- ing the evil, one in particular winch struck us as of wider ajiplication than to that subject alone, viz., that instead of one six months' course of Materia Medica, that subject should be divided into two three months' coiu-ses, whereof one, tlie descripLiou of the drugs and the pra'parata et composiia should precede tlic practical branches of Medicine and Surgery ; and the other. Therapeutics, properly so called, should be given at a later period. Each student at Aberdeen presenting himself for examination receives a card, on which are printed in order the several subjects of examination,