American versus European medical education : a comparison of American medical college work with that of European medical schools, including some thoughts on free trade in medical diplomas of foreign manufacture / by Samuel O.L. Potter.

  • Potter, Samuel O. L. (Samuel Otway Lewis), 1846-1914.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: American versus European medical education : a comparison of American medical college work with that of European medical schools, including some thoughts on free trade in medical diplomas of foreign manufacture / by Samuel O.L. Potter. 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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    Universities are all under the same rule, requir- ing at least five years of work in the medical school, the course occupying nine months in each year. To all this, the Germanophile will reply, that the quality of the examinations is such that no unworthy candidate can pass. Of this we have no evidence but the official discrediting of these examinations by the State, which is rather against than in favor of their high rank. A German physician now practicing as a speciaf- alist in one of our large cities, and a graduate in medicine of the University of Wurzburg, as recently as 1884, told me himself that although an M.D., of that University he could never practice there, for he could not be admitted to the State Examina- tion, not having gone through the proper gym- nasium before entering the University. This shows that the degree of this University is granted with very little adherence to governmental regu- lations ; and exhibits a rather anomalous state of affairs, that a man should be an M.D. of a lead- ing University in a country where he never can obtain authority to practice medicine. Yet this man practices here on that degree, and freely abuses the educational institutions of the country which has been so much more generous to him than the land of his own educational career. To recapitulate then, we see that the medical degrees of German Universities are discredited by the German authorities, and do not entitle their holders to practice in Germany :—that one lead- ing German University, as late as 1880, announced in its regulations that it did not require any at- tendance at lectures, or anything else, as a pre- requisite to examination for its degree of M.D.:— that another leading German University uses the term ‘1 Medical Institution ’ ’ in defining the term