Medical student

“ His views will always remain a suggestive storehouse of thought for those who have the higher medical education at heart.
In his introductory lecture at the opening of the Medical course at the Meath Hospital in Dublin in 1821, he declared very definitely what he considered to be the principal aim of the medical student:
"Students should aim not at seeing many diseases every day; no, their object should be constantly to study a few cases with diligence and attention; they should anxiously cultivate the habit of making accurate observations. ”

“ For the purpose of this instruction a man who had on or before enlistment completed two years of medical study, and who can within thirty-six months complete his professional curriculum and obtain his medical degree or license, is to be regarded as a third-year medical student. Students who do not pass the professional examination in anatomy and physiology within six months of resuming study will be recalled to the colors, and a student transferred to the reserve, unless he resumes his medical studies and enrolls in an Officers' Training Corps, will be recalled. ”

“ In the school thus established by the energy of a college-bred youth and the wisdom of a backwoods practitioner, coupled with the assistance of a most able corps of teachers, he became at once a master spirit. Understanding the nature of the medical student with an insight given to but few, he had a hold upon the class peculiar to himself.
In 1851 he founded the Nashville Journal of Medicine and Surgery, and sustained it for a quarter of a century. ”

“ The diversified tastes and talents of physicians cause each to excel in treating some one class of diseases, to which he devotes more attention and study than to others. One medical student manifests great interest in the anatomy, physiology, pathology, and treatment of diseases of the eye. He becomes thoroughly familiar with all the minutest details relative to that organ and its diseases, and so thoroughly qualifies himself in this branch of knowledge that he is able to cure an inflammation or other affection of the eye in a very short time. ”

“ When the students enter the wards of the hospitals for regular work with the staff, they have to devote a considerable portion of their time to the business of minutely recording the family history, physical signs and symptoms, and the treatment of each patient allotted to them. These records are valuable for reference, and still more so for the education of the pupils. They accustom the student to habits of careful observation; and as clinical work is by far the most important factor in his training, the man who does most of this stands the best chance of thoroughly learning his business. ”

“ It has done, and is doing, much to place the science of medicine on a firm basis. To the text-books of this school, every student who would qualify himself for medical practice must resort, to gain that knowledge upon which depends his future success. ”

“ Such is the admirable way in which the highest skill and wisdom of medicine is combined with the attempts of the novices to attain it in the practice of the hospitals, that the shortcomings and feeble efforts of the learners are glorified and ennobled by the brilliant successes of the teachers, till the mistakes are lost sight of in the dazzling triumphs of their achievements. ”

“ He confirms his steps, smooths the rugged path he has to tread, assists him in climbing the steep ascent, and, before dismission, informs him how he is to conduct himself, in order to reach at length to the summit of his profession. Having a plan before him, a fixed end in view, and the means of attaining it within his reach, the student, impelled on with irresistable ardor, presses forward, eager to reach the goal of knowledge and the height of all medical attainments; and since he is so well instructed in his career, has the apparent prospect of wished for success. ”

“ He aimed at securing for the medical student a good preliminary and a high professional education, and uniform and searching examinations by all universities and medical and surgical colleges. He also advocated the separation of apothecary's work from medicine and surgery as far as practicable. ”

“ Having uttered slowly, and with a saddened expression these words, the medical student—for so it was—seated himself thoughtfully beside the subject, over which he had been standing. He was a young man of twenty-three years, of the nervous temperament,—with light hair, and dark blue eyes. ”

“ A medical student cannot obtain a diploma authorizing him to take under his charge the welfare of the sick without three years' study aided by ocular demonstrations of his especial science. Then, he is expected not to have a dim idea of a patient's condition when diagnosing his case, but to know and understand all about it. ”

“ Before the student is aware of what he has acquired, he has learned the aspects and course and probable issue of the diseases he has seen with his teacher, and the proper mode of dealing with them, so far as his master knows it. On the other hand, our ex cathedra prelections have a strong tendency to run into details which, however interesting they may be to ourselves and a few of our more curious listeners, have nothing in them which will ever be of use to the student as a practitioner. ”

“ All students of the college have a full course of instruction in the outlines of human anatomy and physiology, with so much of hygiene as there is time for; and this has been done in the college for nearly half a century. We do not profess to be a medical college, or to train physicians, but no student leaves us without a fair knowledge of his own bodily system. ”

“ The young men were usually favourites with the people, who are always taken with the free and easy, the good-humoured and generous behaviour of medical students, anxious to improve their own knowledge of work which will be of the greatest 21 importance to them in their future career, and glad to render their—sometimes very far from skilled—services to uncomplaining poverty, with a view to getting their papers signed for the colleges, which demand a definite amount of this work to be performed while in connection with their medical school. ”

“ There is not the slightest difficulty in giving sound elementary instruction in physics, in chemistry, and in the elements of human physiology, in ordinary schools. In other words, there is no reason why the student should not come to the medical school, provided with as much knowledge of these several sciences as he ordinarily picks up, in the course of his first year of attendance, at the medical school. ”

“ She has been waiting probably two or three hours for the interview, for another hour or more she must be stethoscoped, percussed, pounded and pummelled, while the students are picking up from her emaciated and wasting frame the elements of their profession. Nobody at the hospital supposes for a moment they can do her any good, but she offers herself in her ignorance, day after day, a sacrifice on the altar of science, that her abnormal breathing sounds, and other phenomena of disease may teach young men how to earn a respectable living. ”

“ In Europe, the shortest period of study required for a physician's degree is four years, and at least ten months of each year must be spent in attendance upon the course of instruction. This course comprises not only lectures on the different branches of medicine, but thorough practical study of chemistry, botany, anatomy, etc., in the laboratory, gardens, museums, etc. Attendance on the hospitals is also required, where, for several years, the student is occupied with subordinate medical and surgical duty. ”

“ The hospital education of the present day is mere craftsmanship, and should only be permitted in conjunction with a liberal university training. The man who knows medicine and surgery only, however well he may know both, has only half learned the business of a doctor. ”

“ In the same way the student must be taught to apply the knowledge gained in the lecture-room, and from books, to the practical duties of the physician. She must be taught how to practice medicine; and the care of the sick under supervision should be an essential part of the future physician's training. (Of course I include in the term medicine, the prevention of disease; the knowledge and application of hygienic law is essential to the education of a woman physician.) ”

“ The student in medicine now gains access to medical colleges in nearly every State in the Union, and the legitimacy of her pursuit as well as her ability to grapple with it gains increasing advocates. "She is no longer regarded as too good and too stupid to study medicine." ”

“ The house physician is soon going into private practice, and he wants to consolidate and confirm all his knowledge of the various forms of disease; the lecturer loves nothing better than to exhibit his really admirable powers of clinical observation to a body of rising men, who can send him many patients and more guineas. ”

“ Medical science comprises several branches, of which the following are the principal; viz., Anatomy, Surgery, Materia Medica, Chemistry, the Theory and Practice of Physic. On these subjects, lectures are given in several colleges and universities in Europe, and in the United States. In this country, an attendance on two regular courses of lectures entitles the student to the degree of Doctor of Medicine, provided he can sustain with sufficient ability, an examination before the professors, or, as they are usually termed, the medical faculty. ”

“ If the gentlemen who examined him overnight have been duly interested in their cases, they will have read them up from the approved text-books; and it will be strange if that reading has not raised questions and points that will necessitate a fresh examination. So the man gets another ounce of brandy, and another knocking about. At three in the afternoon the head physician—a fashionable West-End speciality man for diseases of the chest—goes his rounds, followed by a crowd of students. ”

“ The student thus became familiar with the details of practice even before matriculating regularly in a medical college. I have met young men who had been for years such assistants to physicians, and who later entered college merely to become legally qualified. ”

“ The preliminary examination in general subjects is taken before admission to the medical school. After this, the first year at the medical school is spent in scientific study, such as Biology, Inorganic Chemistry, etc. Having passed her first scientific examination, the student proceeds to the study of the human individual, and deals for the next two years with Anatomy, which includes dissection, Physiology, the study of drugs in Materia Medica and Pharmacology, and Organic Chemistry. ”

“ To accomplish this demands the brightest talents, a liberal education and great experience. We cannot suppose then that a Student of ordinary parts can, by any means of himself, acquire sufficient skill in medicine to take charge properly of the lives of mankind. ”

“ She was very anxious they should avail themselves of every opportunity that arose to improve themselves. No member of the staff was more interested than she in the pass list of the College of Surgeons; she felt it as a reproach against her teaching when any of them failed, and on the eve of a “Pass Exam.” or a “Final College,” she spared the patients in the receiving-room no agony as long as any one of the men “going up,” could extract useful information about fracture, dislocation, or the adjustment of a splint. ”

“ There are some few men who, in their first and second year, dissect on every available opportunity; for anatomy cannot be crammed, and can only be mastered by this persistent business of the scalpel. Occasionally a visitor will drop in to look round at the work going on; some general practitioner who has been at the school in his early days, to refresh his memory on some point, or to rekindle for a few moments the lost enthusiasm in such studies. ”

“ It is a very extensive and laborious task, to learn to be a good Physician; for the requisite Arts and Sciences are so comprehensive, that much time must be spent before a Student can be properly Qualified. ”

“ A graduate of a legally authorized medical college in the State, or any of the United States, or any other country, is deemed qualified to practise medicine and surgery in all departments after registration. A student or undergraduate is not prohibited from practising with and under the immediate supervision of a person legally qualified to practise medicine and surgery (ib.) ”

“ The student of medicine finds his teachers go a great deal too far; and becoming a medical sceptic when he has obtained his diploma, he generally adopts “the expectant treatment,” and leaves everything to the vis medicatrix naturæ—in other words, he leaves his case exactly where he found it, and takes much scientific credit to himself for his non-interference.
You could always, if you liked, have the expectant treatment exhibited at St. Bernard’s ”

“ We shall thus be able not only to give to each student an additional term of systematic instruction, with all those advantages of hospital practice which belong only to a large city, but we shall be able to keep her under college influence during the remainder of each year, directing the intermediate studies, and forming much more accurate acquaintance than were otherwise possible, with the qualifications of each candidate for graduation. ”

“ Medical students should therefore have studied zoology and botany before beginning the study of medicine, and should have acquired some skill in the use of the scalpel and the microscope. It is absurd that anybody should begin with the human body the practise of dissection or of surgery; and, furthermore, it is wholly irrational that any young man who means to be a physician should not have mastered the elements of biology, chemistry and physics years before he enters a medical school. ”