On the centralisation of medical education by the University of London / by A.D. Waller.

  • Waller, Augustus Désiré, 1856-1922.
Date:
[1901]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: On the centralisation of medical education by the University of London / by A.D. Waller. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Eeprinted from Uie British Mkpical Journai, May 4Ui, 1901. ON THE CENTRALISATION OF MEDICAL EDUCATION BY THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON. By A. D. WALLER, M.D., F.R.S. Medical education falls naturally into three stages : 1. Preliminary scientific—chemistry, physics, biology. 2. Early medical—anatomy, physiology. 3. Medical proper—medicine, surgery. There is at present no obvious necessity for centralisation of studies belonging to the third stage—medicine, surgery, pathology, and allied special departments of medicine and surgery, ophthalmology, laryngology, dermatology, obstetric medicine, and surgery, etc. It is tacitly recognised that on any large scale the instruction in these subjects must be essentially practical, given to relatively small groups of pupils in the out-patient and in-patient departments of the several London hospitals. These departments are substantially the laboratories in which practical instruction is given, and the paramount importance of such practical instruction delivered to small groups of pupils is properly recognised by the desig- nation of “ clinical ” as applied to subjects of the third stage. Pharmacology and pathology are upon a somewhat dififerent footing, and will require particular consideration. Subjects oh the first and of the second stages are those in which, by reason of the considerable burden and waste energy involved in their quasi-complete treatment in twelve difiTerent rival centres, a need for concentration has made itself felt. It is very evident that with twelve disconnected and inde- pendent schools, each complete in itself, partly or wholly dependent upon pupils’ fees for its income, the re- sources necessary for “complete efficiency in all subjects” have not been forthcoming, and in any case have in large measure run to waste by reason of multiplication of plant and appliances that would have been better economised if the fees and appliances had been concentrated in fewer than twelve schools.