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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    hardly be arrived at by any other process. On the other hand, when definite questions are set on paper, system- and method are tested more fully than they can be by a viva voce examination. There can be no shirking of the work imposed by them, no ingenious fluking, or quick helping out of ignorance by a rapid appreciation of the Examiner's manner, or by aid cunningly obtained by the suggestion of a somewhat different form of putting the question. Here all must be straightforward, categorical, enumeration of points requu-ed, symptoms to be given, grounds for diagnosis to be set out, parts to be enumerated, functions detailed, or formulae correctly set down. The systematical, well-stored, thoughtful mind will, under this mode of examination, find the best results dependent on method, order, arrangement and thoroughness. In every examination, whether theoretical or clinical, we should always wish to see half the marks awarded for viva voce, and half for paper answers. In the clinical examination the paper would take the form of specifying such and such a patient, and requiring the candidate to examine him without questioning from the Examiner, and to write down such and such symptoms and signs of disease as he might observe or elicit, with his grounds for diagnosis, prognosis, and desirable treatment. The marks at examinations ought in all cases to be by graduated numbers, say from 0 to 10, not by signifying Yes or No on the question of the candidate's passing; and a certain percentage of the whole number of marks, fixed beforehand, and also a minimum in each branch, ought to be required for passing. E. gr. 50 per cent, might be required as a minimum on the whole of an examination to pass the candidate; then if there were, say, 10 marks allotted as a maximum to each subject included in the examination, 4 marks might be required in each subject as a minimum, less than this being considered to exhibit a defective knowledge of that subject, however well other subjects might be answered.