Report on the examinations 1881-2 of the medical and surgical corporations of the United Kingdom : together with remarks thereon by bodies visited, and General Medical Council's resolutions on the visitors' conclusions.

  • General Medical Council.
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the examinations 1881-2 of the medical and surgical corporations of the United Kingdom : together with remarks thereon by bodies visited, and General Medical Council's resolutions on the visitors' conclusions. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

    30/322 (page 18)
    VISITATION-EEPOET. Physiology. Physiological Examinations of other Bodies. Ketrospect of previous visitations and results of recommenda- tions. SO far as the written paper is concerned, is based upon two answers only, selected by the candidate himself, from three optional questions. It seems remarkable that in a group of 67 candidates, so large a proportion of whom failed to pass their written examination, there should liave been only three whose written examination in physiology would, under any circumstances, have contributed to their rejection. As compared with the minute and scrupulous care bestowed upon the ana- tomical part of the examination, and even upon the materia medica within the limits allotted to it, it appeared to the Visitors that physiology proper, in its more modern develop- ments especially, received far too little consideration in this examination. The physiological examinations of the other bodies were carefully conducted, and, on the whole, satisfactorily, with, the exception of the Apothecaries' Society of London, on which the Visitors have commented elsewhere; the range of questions embracing generally the more important facts of physiology, and the histological specimens being such as any average student might be expected to be familiar with. The Visitors may here briefly indicate certain alleged defects connected with the several Qxaminations inspected, wliicli were noticed by their predecessors in 1873-4. In the examinations, both primary and final, of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, the absence of dissections by the candidates, and of examinations in chemistry, materia medica, and pathological histology were emphasised, and yet the same omissions were observed at the present visitation. In the Irish College of Surgeons the recommendations of the Visitors have been carried out, both as regards the increased duration of the period devoted to the examination and the intro- duction of histology and chemistry. It still remains, however, to give commensurate prominence to physiology, the scope of which in medical education needs to be carefully studied, defined, and regulated by those responsible for examinations. In the examination at the English College of Physicians the defects remarked have been removed, and improvements have been introduced by examining the candidates on morbid anatomy and histology and the nature of morbid processes, besides the requirement of a more extensive knowledge of physiology.