Observations on the system of teaching clinical medicine in the University of Edinburgh, with suggestions for its improvement ...

Date:
1827
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the system of teaching clinical medicine in the University of Edinburgh, with suggestions for its improvement ... 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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    fects alluded to have reference as well to the period of attendance required of the pupil, as to the method of teaching this department of medicine, according to the present regulations of the uni- versity. Of the various branches of medical education, clinical instruction is, beyond all question, the most important, and is, in truth, that to which the others are merely preparatory and subservient. It is only at the bedside of the sick, that the pupil, guided by an experienced practitioner, can make with advantage, or ought to make at all, his first acquaintance with diseases, or learn to observe them with the accuracy which they require. He may, indeed, have heard excellent descriptions of disease delivered in lecture rooms, and read much of it in books; but the impressions he receives from such sources are faint and transitory, com- pared with those produced by actual intercourse with the sick. Personal observation, therefore, is absolutely necessary to the right investigation and conception of the phenomena of disease; but in proportion as the first impressions produced by these are strong, is it of importance that the pupil’s observation should be rightly directed. This can only be done by a well conducted system of clinical instruction. Such being indisputably the case, it is surely of the first consequence that ij 2