A scheme of medical tuition / by E.A. Parkes.

  • Parkes, Edmund A. (Edmund Alexander), 1819-1876.
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A scheme of medical tuition / by E.A. Parkes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    com]3lete, it would still be a question whether an official order of study would not be desirable. But what practical good can result from raising the question now, as it seems to be admitted that, till the examination is complete, it must be supplemented by regula- tions intended to ensure that subjects have been learnt 1 The immediate questions for decision seem to me to be—How can a limited time be most profitably occupied in order to give the best chance of gaining a certain result ? What system of teaching is the best, to what length is it to go, and how are the results to be gauged 1 When these questions have been angered, then surely we may make the answers into laws—into laws, however, which are not unchangeable like those of the Medes and Persians, and not vexatious and frivolous, but laws which represent the care- fully considered views of those who are fittest to judge what should be learnt and how it should be learnt; laws, in fact, which should be as sign-posts for the students, telling them how best to reach their goal. To regulations of that kind I hardly think it would be wise to object. IV. SCHOOL TESTS OF PROGRESS. A teacher ought to be sure that he has taught. How should he ascertain this ? How should he make clear—1st, that he is himself not going beyond the limit of practicable teacliing ; and 2nd, that his pupils have got what he wants them to get from his tuition 1 He can only do this in one way,—by frequent examinations. Compulsory class examinations are essential; they are actually in force in some schools, and they have been recommended in several Reports of the Medical Council. The point is how to conduct them. Weekly oral examinations were cariied on for many years at University College, and I have been present at a great number of them. They appeared to me to fail in consequence of the numerous absentees, the length of time occupied with slow men in getting over the ground, and the consequent small number of students examined. The object aimed at, viz., the testing of every man, was certainly not attained. I have seen at the Mlitary Medical School at the Val de Grace,