Henry Baird Favill, AB, MD, LL.D., 1860-1916, a ... - University Library

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MEDICINE AND PUBLIC HEALTH 43
is essentially very difficult. Medical education has become
to the student burdensome. The medical student of today
is confronted with a mass of scientific material that is
appalling, which it is incumbent upon him reasonably to
master.
So great is this material that it is out of the question
for it
to be incorporated with exactness, and as information,
by anybody in the space of four years.
There is need for the wisest pedagogic method in our
medical schools in order thoroughly to accomplish effective
education of our students.
Drilling into them endless facts,
valuable as they may be, will not accomplish this. Clear
presentation of principles, thorough training in technique,
and abundant opportunity for application of their knowledge,
should be the foundation stones of medical education.
With regard to technique, the development of recent
years has been marked and of the utmost value. With regard
to application, the tendency toward thorough compulsory
hospital and dispensary experience is sound and
progressive. With regard to pedagogic philosophy, looking
to inculcation of principles, the situation is not so
satisfactory.
A tendency toward laboratory development has drawn
us away from the more deeply cultural aspects of medicine.
In two directions, notably, medical curricula are deficient.
Speaking broadly, there is no education offered to medical
students in the fundamentals of hygiene and psychology.
Any experienced practitioner whose perspective corresponds
to his experience will recognize the weakness in this
situation.
In part this omission is due to the flood of material
which has seemed to demand recognition in the curriculum.
In part it is due to an intense demand for scientific
training which in recent years has dominated the profession
and which has resulted not only in the overcrowding of the
student mind, but in noticeable minimizing of the practitioner
aspect of the graduate.
If one could assume that matters of sanitation, personal