coming from this section. At present, the ratio of physicians to population in this section is 1:592, not reckoning osteopaths. The section is thus badly overcrowded with physicians; and as population is increasing slowly, there is no possibility that is increase will within a generation bring about a satisfactory adjustment. In the matter of distribution, the usual conditions prevail: cities and small towns are alike oversupplied.[1]
It is clear, then, that New England will need no more physicians for years to come; it can of course begin none too soon the process of substituting a higher grade of physician for what it now has. To bring about a gradual reconstruction of the profession, it is important that certain legal changes be promptly made. Massachusetts, for example, remains one of three states Which obstructs the. improvement of medical education by permitting non-graduates to be examined for license. The law should not only require graduation from a reputable medical school, but should, in the interest of the public, fix with due warning a minimum basis for admission thereto, as Connecticut has wisely done, and should empower and require the state boards to refuse examination to graduates of schools whose facilities are inadequate. Of course, a thorough practical examination would still further increase the effectiveness of the boards in protecting the public against ill trained practitioners.
If, now, the law prescribed a thorough knowledge of physics, chemistry, and biology —surely feasible in New England if feasible in Minnesota and Indiana—as the minimum basis of medical education, attendance in medical schools would promptly shrink in number and improve in quality. A more critical attitude on the part of the state boards and the student body in reference to the educational advantages offered by the several schools would probably result in a reconstruction of the situation somewhat along these lines:
A thoroughly wretched institution, like the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Boston, would be at once wiped out. The clinical departments of Dartmouth, Bowdoin, and the University of Vermont would certainly be lopped off; there is no good reason why these institutions—colleges all of them—should be concerned with medicine at all. The mere fact that they are all old schools is a poor reason for continuing them if they fail to do justice to the student, and thereby fail to subserve
- ↑ By way of example, the following are cited at random:
Massachusetts: Onset population 621 number of physicians 4 State ratio, 1:567 Westport population” 900 number” of” physicians” 3 Maine: Saco population” 6270 number” of” physicians” 14 State ratio, 1:600 Springfield population” 582 number” of” physicians” 2 Lisbon Falls population” 200 number” of” physicians” 3 New Hampshire: Centerville population” 88 number” of” physicians” 2 State ratio, 1:651 Lisbon population” 2100 number” of” physicians” 6 Orford population” 794 number” of” physicians” 3 Vermont: Plainfield population” 940 number” of” physicians” 3 State ratio, 1:534 Newhaven population” 640 number” of” physicians” 3 Randolph population” 3000 number” of” physicians” 8 Connecticut: Stefney Depot population” 420 number” of” physicians” 2 State ratio, 1:740 Suffield population” 5400 number” of” physicians” 7 Rhode Island: Centerdale population” 270 number” of” physicians” 2 State ratio, 1:724 Thornton population” 415 number” of” physicians” 2 Wickford population” 1515 number” of” physicians” 4
