Linkmeister

Med skool

I'm reading Barry's book about the flu epidemic of 1918, and one of the things he emphasizes is how miserable American medical education was, particularly when compared to Europe. In 1870, for example:

European medical schools required and gave rigorous scientific training and were generally subsidized by the state. In contrast, most American medical schools were owned by a faculty whose profits and salaries -- even when they did not own the school -- were paid by student fees, so the schools often had no admission standards other than the ability to pay tuition. No medical school in America allowed medical students to routinely either perform autopsies or see patients, and medical education often consisted of nothing more than two four-month terms of lectures. Few medical schools had any association with a university, and fewer still had ties to a hospital. In 1870 even at Harvard a medical student could fail four of nine courses and still get an M.D. (p. 32)

William Welch, who was the first dean of the medical school at Johns Hopkins, said in 1893 when he was hired "no American medical school requires for admission knowledge approaching that necessary for entrance into the freshman class of a respectable college...some require no evidence of preliminary education whatever."

Who knew? Think about the requirements necessary to become a doctor now, according to the US Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics:

4 years of undergraduate school, 4 years of medical school, and 3 to 8 years of internship and residency, depending on the specialty selected. A few medical schools offer a combined undergraduate and medical school programs that last 6 rather than the customary 8 years.

Premedical students must complete undergraduate work in physics, biology, mathematics, English, and inorganic and organic chemistry. Students also take courses in the humanities and the social sciences.

So any doctor reading this who's now struggling with student loans is probably saying "Damn. I was born too late!"

Posted by Linkmeister at November 8, 2005 12:17 PM | TrackBack