Medical politics : being the essay to which was awarded the first Carmichael prize, of £200, by the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland, 1873 / by Isaac Ashe.

  • Ashe, Isaac.
Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical politics : being the essay to which was awarded the first Carmichael prize, of £200, by the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland, 1873 / by Isaac Ashe. 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.

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    CONJOINT EXAMINATIONS. nothing but bringing them up to the level of the reforming ideas of the day. It may yet be done, but the work cannot be begun a moment too soon. The profession has been much-enduring and long-suffering, but it so happens that the interests of the public and the profession are identical in the present instance, and if the attention of the public happens ever to be strongly drawn to these points, as by some review article or powerful newspaper leader, it will rise up in its wrath and sweep away at one stroke the whole of our ancient and venerable corporations. We write in their interests; Faithful are the wounds of a friend. The union of Corporations granting different licences for the purpose of effecting a conjoint examination was, we believe, first proposed by the present writer about five years ago;* the idea was then criticised unfavourably and spoken of as Utopian, but now it is universally talked of, and appears to be near realisation ; indeed it is even said that it is contem- plated by the Legislature as a measure to be forced on the Corporations if they cannot speedily come to some agreement as to terms. The terms, that is to say, the pecuniary arrange- ments, are the principal difficulty. How much of the diploma fees are to be allocated to each of the Examining Bodies ? As regards the Irish Corporations we might perhaps solve the present difficulty by enquiring wha,t was the money value which each has placed on its diploma hitherto. If we assume the correctness of this method of finding a proportion or ratio between them then we think the question is settled; for it would not be reasonable to ask that in consequence of their joining together for such examination the Corporations should suffer pecuniarily, nor yet could the student reasons ably expect to get off cheaper than he did before. It Avill be said that he can half-qualify now, taking out a single instead of a double or full qualification, and thus pay less. * Vide the author's former Carmicbael Prize Essay (1868), p. 97, et seq. The proposal for a conjoint examination there made was, as far as I know, the earliest suggestion made to that effect.—I. A.