Proposed Alterations in the Medical Curriculum

Abstract

THE remarks made in your number of December 18 by my friend Prof. Balfour are founded on the mistake lie has made in supposing that it is proposed to abolish the regulation requiring attendance on the courses of lectures on Botany and Zoology. There is no question raised between mere examining boards and teaching institutions, between compulsory and optional attendance on professors' lectures. It is simply that the candidate for medical degrees be allowed to take the examination in Zoology and Botany earlier than is at present permitted. At present the examination in these subjects in Edinburgh University is fixed by ordinance at the end of the second of the four years of medical study, and in this University, while the Botany comes at that time, the Zoology is actually not till the end of the third year, so that our case is even worse than that of Edinburgh. Prof. Balfour says, “The student might be encouraged to take his science examination at an early period of his curriculum, say at the end of his first year of study.” That is exactly the result practically aimed at here, and I am quite at one with him on the subject. But why prevent the student from taking the examination in Botany and Zoology before entering on his medical curriculum proper, if he has attended the professor's class and is ready for it? Very few would at present do so, as it would imply a preliminary year of attendance at the Universities to obtain the courses of Zoology and Botany. But is it not a very desirable thing, from every point of view, to encourage this? So far from lowering the standard in these subjects, or promoting cramming, it would do exactly the reverse. It would enable real study to take the place of the cramming which is inevitable when these subjects are left over to be mixed up with medical studies proper.