PAPERS OX MEDICINE AND PUBLIC HEALTH 



of effort, giving the medical student the sound, prac 

 advice which he n -:>ecially in the first few years 



of his medical career. There is nothing in our present 

 medical curriculum to bridge the gap between the medi- 

 cal student y and the well-grounded medical prac- 

 titioner of ten years from now. 



S cond, the student, both in coll in the I 



looks on the patient simply a - nit in a large mass 



of clinical material. Himself a machine-made product, 

 with but little individuality in his training, he regards 

 the patient in much the same light. N where is he 

 taught to consider the patient in the hospital or in the 

 clinic as an individual entity which he must learn to 

 understand quite as thoroughly as he does the dis 

 from which the individual patient is suffering. He is 

 taught to treat diseases rather than human 



Third, and most important of all. the medical student 

 at no time during his four-year course receives any in- 

 struction or even any advice regarding his own individual 

 place in society, his relation to his patients, the public, or 

 the medical profession as a whole, the ial relations 



of the medical profession, or how the present-day situa- 

 tion came about. Yet all this knowledge, which would 

 make possible an entirely different social viewpoint from 

 that now held by most physicians, could be made a valu- 

 able part of the present-day medical curriculum. Even 

 if it were necessary to sacrifice some of the numerous 

 specialties which now occupy so much time, such a 

 would be well worth the while. But such a sacrific 

 not necessary. One hour a week, during the four-year 

 course, is ample for this pu 



During the first or freshman year and before the stud- 

 ent has had his mind distracted by a multitude of other 

 subjects, one hour a we:k. throughout the freshman year, 

 should be given to the history of medicine. This import- 

 ant subject should be taught, not in the perfunctory and 

 dry manner in which most historical matter is presented, 

 not in the fragmentary and divided way in which some 

 of the special departments present the history of their 

 own subject. It should rather be given as a series of in- 

 formal talks on the early history and development of 



