262 ILLINOIS STATE ACADEMY OP SCIENCE 



by a firm of ambulance-chasing lawyers, brought by a 

 dead-beat patient to scare the doctor from collecting his 

 bill, or the consequence of an unforseen but unfortunate 

 outcome of a complicated fracture or a wilful and diso- 

 bedient patient. Does the doctor know his own rights, 

 responsibilities, and liabilities before the law, so that 

 he can protect his own interests ? Not from anything he 

 has learned in college. Yet the principles of the common 

 law as applied to professional responsibility are com- 

 paratively simple and could easily be presented in such 

 a way as to be of enormous value to the student. "But," 

 you say, "most medical colleges give a course in medical 

 jurisprudence. ' ' True. But most, if not all the time for 

 such a course is devoted to criminal law and the legal 

 aspects of insanity. Few doctors, even after they have 

 been practicing for years, have any clear ideas regard- 

 ing a physician's rights, obligations, and responsibilities 

 as applied to the problems of everyday practice. 



What does the student learn in our present-day medi- 

 cal school? He learns the science of medicine. Nowhere, 

 so far as I know, has any attempt been made to teach 

 him or even advise him on the applied art of the practice 

 of medicine. When the University of Pittsburgh Medi- 

 cal School, a few years ago, decided, what was perfectly 

 true, that their graduates were being turned out without 

 any knowledge of the history of their profession, a course 

 in medical history was added to the curriculum. But 

 who gave the course? The professor of history in the 

 University, a non-medical man, whose only knowledge 

 of the history and development of the medical profession 

 was gained from textbooks. In order to cure the danger 

 of specialism, another specialist was added. 



Our present-day medical curriculum, then, is deficient 

 in that it lacks a humanizing influence at three points of 

 contact. 



First, the instruction, today, is exclusively by special- 

 ists, each interested in his particular line. The student 

 does not anywhere come in contact with a broad, highly 

 trained mind, capable of synthetizing the entire field of 

 medical knowledge for him, adding the experience and 

 practical knowledge that has been gained through years 



