Talk:History of Medicine (United States)

Article Checklist for "History of Medicine (United States)"

Workgroup category or categories	Health Sciences Workgroup, History Workgroup [Editors asked to check categories]
Article status	Developing article: beyond a stub, but incomplete
Underlinked article?	Yes
Basic cleanup done?	Yes
Checklist last edited by	Larry Sanger 10:10, 8 March 2007 (CST)

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So far, the history of American medicine is extremely short!  :-) --Larry Sanger 20:10, 6 March 2007 (CST)

Holy Moly, no doubt! :)-Matt Innis (Talk) 21:10, 6 March 2007 (CST)

References

Oliver, Thomas R. Policy Entrepreneurship in the Social Transformation of American Medicine: The Rise of Managed Care and Managed Competition [View in PDF] Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law - Volume 29, Number 4-5, August-October 2004, pp. 701-733

Starr, Paul - Social transformation of American medicine.

I had just welcomed the a co-author, before I noticed that mostly he has erased everything I've written. I could put it back and go on, I guess, but its a dull task and a thankless one. Nancy Sculerati MD 13:13, 8 March 2007 (CST)

I did move sentences around but I only cut a couple. (on genetic isolation and on public health in ports that was unclear what century was being discussed.). Richard Jensen 13:26, 8 March 2007 (CST)

Richard and others, this article is about Medicine, the history of the Medical profession in the United States and, medical education - as pointed out in the original introduction. The business about the diseases in the New World being few and far between as compared to the old world was mentioned because it lead to a great financial support of public quarrentine facilities in NYC, that laid the foundation for public hospitals. These, especially after the Flexner report in 1910, led to a system of medical education that combined University training with post-graduate residency training, on a model of John Hopkins, that incorporated some of the great public hospitals of the United States with the finest of the University Medical Schools. This article can also expand on some of the topics brought up in Chiropractic. Although I am very open to others input, and am particularly delighted at a historian's interest, the" Public Health" or" History of Epidemic and Infectious Diseases" or "Medical history of the population of the United States" is really an entirely different article. I'm not coming up with a great title, but I encourage you to do so, Richard. We can move the disease and life span, neonatal mortality etc stuff there. Here, this article should fit in with a larger History of Medicine article, and this one should concentrate on the fascinating history of the medical profession in US. Nancy Sculerati MD 17:06, 8 March 2007 (CST)

Nancy, you might like to take a look at this [1] as a resource. It's a wonderful museum, and I have "Medicine Man", the book of the museum. Wellcome was American born but worked in the UK, but travelled widely and collected avidly; the Wellcome Foundation accordingly remains a strong supporter in the UK of research into the history of medicine. Minor point; should it be United States or USA? I think the latter is generally used outside the US which is why I tend to change it.

Gareth Leng 04:05, 9 March 2007 (CST)

I suggest that the history of medicine has to include the question of what disease environment doctors encountered, and how much difference their practice made. Hence mortality data seems highly relevant. Richard Jensen 05:56, 9 March 2007 (CST)

"the requirements for obtaining a medical degree"... suggest replacing with qualifications needed to practise medicine (or something similar) - an MD in the UK for instance is a higher degree, not simply the qualification to practise, and is accordingly (I think) higher degree than the American MD - I may be wrong..... Obviouly qualifications to practise differ in different countries and qualifictions are not generally mutually recognised.Gareth Leng 06:28, 9 March 2007 (CST)

I think you are wrong Gareth- and I think that this article should emphasize the "American". You see, medicine was regualted in England after this 1858 (?plus minus a couple of years) Medical Act, and in France from the start of the 19th Century. In the USA, unlike Europe, there were little to no restrictions on what a medical school had to teach or what qualifications a "doctor" had to have. After the Flexner Report (1910), there was a big reform and the routine qualifications of all MDs became, at least on paper, higher than the european minimum. Whereas before those Flexner reforms, some medical schools required nothing more than tuition, and others demanded some college study-knowledge of Latin etc as a prerequisite, afterwards the US system of medical schools became a post-baccaleaurate program. By and large, for most of the 20th Century -4 years of university study-with a degree earned at the end, were required for entrance to medical school. first year medical students are age 22 in the US-and up. Medical schools became 4 year programs, and by the 50s-60s, formal clinical training for at least a year after medical school was standard before a license was granted. By the 70's -80's, board certification in a specialty was becoming common, and residency training programs ranged from about 3 to 7 years after the MD was granted. So, the systems are not the same. There are other differences too, in terms of how much responsibility residents have -it's more here. That's because the residency training rograms in the USA were modelled on Johns Hopkins- Abraham's Flexner's "gold standard". So again- here in the US the MD is ahigher degree, and is NOT enough to practice with, you need at least a year of residency after that and must pass many tests. Nancy Sculerati MD 06:48, 9 March 2007 (CST)

You're right Richard, about the diseases, and mortality- and, the word Medicine also includes the knowledge and practices, the art and science of Medicine - and so those need to be explicitly included, too. So we might just all continue, and as the article will surely grow out of bounds, we can keep sections on all these topics in- and produce whole additional articles besides. Nancy Sculerati MD 08:29, 9 March 2007 (CST)