Medical education and the midwife problem in the United States / J. Whitridge Williams.

  • Williams, J. Whitridge (John Whitridge), 1866-1931.
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Medical education and the midwife problem in the United States / J. Whitridge Williams. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    VI. HIGHER REQUIREMENTS BY STATE EXAMINING BOARDS The reforms which I have indicated are revolutionary in character, and I thoroughly realize will require years for fulfilment after their necessity has become recog- nized by university medical schools. On the other hand, immediate improvement would follow if the medical examining boards of the country should insist on the presentation by applicants for licensure of evidence that they had received a reasonable amount of training in clinical obstetrics. As already indicated, I regard an experience of twenty deliveries under suitable clinical auspices as the minimum preparation for the conduct of normal labor, but far from sufficient to equip one for the care of complicated cases. That this is not an exorbitant demand is shown by the fact that in Great Britain attendance on the same number of cases is a necessary prerequisite for licensure. Accordingly, if' the* licensing boards would require each applicant to present evidence that he had seen at least ten women delivered, and had examined them per- sonally during the process, a great step forward would be made, not only in the education of students, but also in aiding to suppress some of the least desirable medical schools, which would be unable to fulfil such conditions. I understand that Dr. Barton Cooke Hirst of Philadel- phia has started a propaganda along these lines, and I bespeak for him every assistance from those who are interested in the problem. Naturally, the mere witnessing of ten or any number of deliveries will be almost without educational value, unless the student is carefully supervised and instructed. Consequently, under such a scheme only such deliveries should be credited as have occurred in a suitable lying-in ward or in a well-organized out-patient department, in which assistants are available for the demonstration of each case. VII. EDUCATION OF THE LAITY The public should be taught that only the well-to-do, who can afford to employ competent obstetricians, and the very poor, who are treated free in well-equipped lying-in hospitals or out-patient departments, receive first-rate attention during childbirth; while the great middle class, and particularly those at its lower end, is