Creating the Modern Physician: The Architecture of American Medical Schools in the Era of Medical Education Reform

Abstract

In the late nineteenth century, the American system of medical education underwent a complete transformation. Medical colleges shifted from commercial schools where instruction was based almost exclusively on classroom lectures to university-affiliated programs providing hands-on training in both laboratory and clinical work. Medical educators recognized that successfully enacting the new pedagogy required new buildings. By the 1930s, almost every medical college in the United States had rebuilt or significantly renovated its facilities. In Creating the Modern Physician: The Architecture of American Medical Schools in the Era of Medical Education Reform, Katherine L. Carroll analyzes the first wave of schools constructed to house the new medical training. She examines the three dominant types of American medical school buildings, which she argues did more than supply spaces for teaching and research—they defined specific conceptions of modern medicine and helped to shape the modern physician.