Third report from the Select Committee on Medical Registration and Medical Law amendment : together with the minutes of evidence and appendix.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on Medical Registration and Medical Law Amendment.
Date:
1848
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Third report from the Select Committee on Medical Registration and Medical Law amendment : together with the minutes of evidence and appendix. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    342/390 (page 338)
    * I assent to this Clause generally. But I object to tlic minimum age being above twenty-one, and to tbe minimum curriculum of study being five years. Sucb high qualifications may be safely exacted for London, Edinburgh and other large towns, but not for the country at large. The thinly-peopled and poorer parts of the country would be deprived of regular Medical Practitioners, were all required to qualify themselves so highly. The income to be made in such places would be no return for the expense of so protracted an education. The prevailing tendency of Corporations, who grant licenses for General Practice, is to exact too much of their Candidates. The education part of the Clause requires more explanatory details, and ought, in my opinion, to stand thus: viz. after “ Five years,” whereof at least three winter 338 APPENDIX TO THIRD REPORT FROM THE sessions of six months each shall be spent at approved schools, or four years, of which at least four such winter sessions at ap- proved schools;—or three years, of which three such winter ses- sions and three summer sessions of three months each at approved schools. R. Christison. General Practi- tioners to belong to a College of the country in which they practise. Assented to. R. C. of Physicians and Surgeons of Scotland, or, if in Ireland, by the Royal Colleges of Phy- sicians and Surgeons of Iieland, after such proof as shall be satisfactory to the examining colleges, that he lias applied himself to medical and surgical studies during at least Five t Query. years,'f of which at least Three years shall be in universities or hospitals, or public medical HowsPei or surgical schools, recognized by the Medical Council, and in every case shall have received letters testimonial from each of the bodies by which he shall have been examined or admitted as a member, of his being duly qualified to practise as such general practitioner. [*Above] That every person, previous to being registered as a general practitioner in England, shall be required to enrol himself as a member of the Royal College of General Practi- tioners of England, and also as a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England ; and every person previous to being registered as a general practitioner in Scotland or Ireland, shall be required to enrol himself as a member or licentiate of the Royal Col- lege of Surgeons in that part of the United Kingdom in which he shall have received his letters testimonial; and every such person who shall afterwards remove into any part of the United Kingdom other than that in which he obtained his letters testimonial, and shall practise there as a general practitioner, shall he required to enrol himself as a mem- ber or licentiate, as the case may he, of the college or colleges of which he would have been admitted a member or licentiate, if he had been examined and had received his letters testimonial there; and in each case shall be entitled to be so admitted and enrolled without further examination, and on payment of the like fees of admission, and on complying with the same conditions as are required of other members or licentiates of the said colleges respectively; and every general practitioner who upon such removal shall fail to enrol himself, shall he struck off the register, and shall not be restored until he shall have so enrolled himself, and shall have paid such penalty for his default as to the Medical Council shall seem fit, not exceeding Five Pounds for each calendar month during which he shall have been so in default, and all such penalties shall he applied towards defraying the expenses of the Act. [* * Below.] Surgeons. Assented to, except that the age ought to be twenty-one, for reasons stated above in regard to General Practitioners. r. c. Physicians. Assented to, with the excep- tion of what follows, “ and also every person. ” That part of the Clause confers on the English College of Physicians a right to grant a title which it is the pro- vince of Universities to grant, and which it is easy to empower them to grant in the recited cir- cumstances. R. C. That every person shall be entitled to he registered by the Council as a surgeon, who shall haveattained the age of Twenty-five years,and shall have been examined and admitted as a fellow by one of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons of England, Scotland or Ireland, after such proof as shall be satisfactory to the examining College, that lie has applied himself to surgical studies during at least Six years; also, every person who shall have attained the age of Tweniy-two years, and shall have been examined or admitted by the colleges hereinafter named ; (that is to say) if in England, examined or admitted as a member by the Royal College of General Practilioners of England, and also subse- quently examined and admitted as a member by the Royal College of Surgeons of England, or, if in Scotland, examined by the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons of Scotland, and admitted as a fellow or licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons of Scotland, or, if in Iieland, examined by the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons of Ireland, and admitted as a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland : Provided always, that no person who is not a fellow of one of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons of England, Scotland or Ireland shall be registered as a surgeon unless he be also registered as a general practitioner. That every person shall be entitled to be registered by the Council as a physician who shall have been admitted as a fellow or member ofone of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of England, Scotland or Ireland, atid also any person who shall have attained the age of Twenty-six years, and shall have graduated as a doctor of medicine in some University of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, or, subject to the restriction herein- after contained, in some foreign University, or shall have graduated in one of the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge, and shall have afterwards received a license to practise medicine, after due examination from one of those Universities, and shall also, in each of the foregoing cases, have been examined by one of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of England, Scotland or Ireland, after such proof as shall be satisfactory to the examining college that he has applied himself to medical studies during at least Six years, and also every person who shall have attained the age of Forty years, and shall have been registered us a general practitioner or surgeon under this Act, or who was at the time of the passing of this Act legally practising or entitled to practise as a physician, surgeon or apothecary in some part of the said United Kingdom, and in each case shall have ** It is absolutely necessary for the existence of the Scottish University Medical Schools, amidst the overturning of their presen system of education and graduation, to which they have cheerfully assented, that the privileges of General Practitioner be distinct ; secured, as in Sir James Graham’s Bill in 1845, to the Bachelors of Medicine and Surgery who are^ to be graduated under the nev system of things. The Clause I propose for that purpose is as follows :— Every Bachelor of Mediciue, or Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery, of any University of the United Kingdom empowere < grant Medical Degrees, who shall have received his degree not earlier than the age of twenty-two, after a competent general educatioi