Some observations on medical education / by Andrew Wood.

Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Some observations on medical education / by Andrew Wood. 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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    clear that the student will liave more ample scope, if not verge enough, in his course of professional study, whether that extend to three years, or better, to four years, to devote liimself to subjects more strictly professional, comparatively limited in number, and standing to each other in a more unbroken connexion than at present. His pro- fessional course will then embrace these subjects,—viz,, demonstrative anatomy and dissection, anatomy and physiology, materia medica, in- cluding dietetics, surgery, physic, midwifery, medical jurisprudence, hospital attendance, with clinical surgery and medicine, morbid ana- tomy, medical chemistry, practical pharmacy, dispensary practice. In regard to the sessions of study, it would be very desirable that instead of having, as at present, a long winter session of nearly six months, and a short summer session of three months, there should be two equal sessions in each year, of four months ; the first session might commence on the 1st of November, and end on the last day of February, and the second session might commence on the 1st of April, and end on the 31st of July. The interval of a month between the winter and summer session would give the teacher and student needful relaxation, and the long holidays would, as at present, embrace August, September, and October. Some of the subjects lectured on might very profitably occupy two continuous sessions of four months—such, for example, as anatomy and physi- ology, which ought to be combined, and no longer, as at present in Scotland, dissociated, and ought to embrace histology, and such an amount of comparative anatomy as is essential for the proper un- derstanding of many points in physiology. Surgery, also, might thus be made to embrace a larger amount of operative surgery than can be achieved in the present limited session. Practice of physic, too, might thus be made to embrace a course of morbid anatomy, given in the hospital. This would, in my mind, be a better arrange- ment than the present one of repeating systematic courses. Others of the subjects might be amply overtaken in a four-months' course, such as materia medica, midwifery, medical jurisprudence; and these ought to be summer courses, so as to leave more time for dis- section in the winter, which is obviously the best season for the study of anatomy. Clinical lectures, both on surgery and medicine, whicli are of such importance, might, in my opinion, be rendered with advantage both less formal and more frequent than they are at present—a certain portion of the time occupied by the daily visit at the hospital being occupied by practical remarks on the cases which the students have just had the opportunity of seeing in the wards.