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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1139 



in advance, we can feel confident that the 

 evolution will be gradual and logical. The 

 task of preparing our successors is difficult 

 but not hopeless. "We have opportunity to 

 observe the trend of our own times and 

 should seek to avoid for the next genera- 

 tion those faults and deficiencies so appar- 

 ent in our own preparation. 



It would seem that the first duty of every 

 national government in respect to medical 

 education and licensure is the collection 

 and publication of accurate comparative 

 statistics of the staffs, facilities, equip- 

 ments and graduates of all its own institu- 

 tions as a basis for comparison with each 

 other and with those of other countries. 



In the absence of such official informa- 

 tion, the Carnegie Foundation for the Ad- 

 vancement of Teaching, a private and un- 

 official organization, in order to meet its 

 own needs, undertook an international 

 study of these matters and published a re- 

 port on Medical Education in the United 

 States and Canada in 1910 and a report on 

 Medical Education in Europe in 1912. 

 These reports furnish the first accurate in- 

 formation which permits comparison of the 

 medical institutions in America with each 

 other and with those of Europe. 



So far as the United States is concerned, 

 this involuntary and quite unofficial stock- 

 taking has inspired official correction of 

 conditions which it was first necessary for 

 the public to know in order to cure under 

 this democratic system of government. 



Fortunately, these reports which were 

 begun in the United States and Canada, 

 have brought together the very material 

 needed by all countries in planning for the 

 future and we may be encouraged by the 

 words of Mr. Flexner with which he begins 

 his first chapter of the Report on Medical 

 Education in Europe, when he says: 



Medical education has only of late deliberately 

 set out to overtake medical practise. 



If as a result of his thoroughgoing stud- 

 ies he is able to give us this assurance, we 

 can be satisfied that we are already well on 

 the way. 



It is only a few years since the profes- 

 sion of medicine prided itself on the thor- 

 oughness with Which it had reduced 

 "minding its own business" to a science 

 and the cultivation of aloofness to a fine 

 art. Medicine was "holy ground." "We 

 have progressed so far, however, that we 

 are now quite ready to agree with Dr. 

 Pritchett's remarks on the occasion of the 

 dedication of the hospital of the State Uni- 

 versity of Indiana, 2 June, 1914, when he 

 advanced three main reasons why medical 

 education is a matter upon which the lay- 

 man has a right to be heard. 



Firstly, he holds that medical education 

 is primarily a matter of education and not 

 a matter of medicine, in that it involves 

 premedical as well as medical and graduate 

 instruction and in fact the whole national 

 training system. 



Secondly, he cites the layman's own in- 

 terest, since it is he who is made or marred 

 by the medical profession and he therefore 

 naturally wants to know how the members 

 of the profession are trained. He further- 

 more has a right to public reports upon the 

 ideals, standards, equipment, teachers and 

 graduates of the various teaching institu- 

 tions in order to exercise discrimination in 

 the selection of his own physician. 



Thirdly, he maintains that the layman 

 is interested in medical education on ac- 

 count of his responsibility in matters of 

 public administration. These involve not 

 only public health work, with the control, 

 suppression and eradication of disease, but 

 the formulation and administration of laws 

 relating to standards of medical education, 

 graduation and licensure. 



The protection of the general public as 



2 Journal of the American Medical Association, 

 August 22, 1914, p. 648. 



