CHAPTER XVI.
CLINICAL INSTRUCTION.
It has been shown that clinical instruction was inaugurated in the Pennsylvania Hospital in 1766, by Dr. Bond, in connection with the establishment of the medical lectures of the College, At the time of the organization of the Medical Department, five of the physicians of the Hospital were Trustees of the College, and, well aware of the advantages of clinical teaching, they regarded the association of the two institutions as of the highest consequence to the success of the enterprise of establishing systematic medical teaching in the city of Philadelphia. Anterior to 1800, eight of the professors engaged in conducting courses of lectures on the several branches of medicine taught in the College or University had successively been elected physicians or surgeons of the Hospital.[1] The instruction in this institution has been continued under the direction of medical professors, or of the physicians attached to it, to the present time, and has always been regarded as one of the privileges of students visiting Philadelphia.[2]
As far as we have been able to ascertain, the mode of conducting the instruction in the Pennsylvania Hospital in early times was at the bed-side of the patient; the physician, in making his stated rounds of the wards, selecting such cases as he deemed most interesting or instructive, and especially dwelling upon their nature and treatment. For a large class this plan of procedure was attended with its disadvantages; the confusion of a crowded apartment; the possibility of only a
- ↑ See Appendix G.
- ↑ Dr. Caldwell, in his Autobiography, states that “Dr. Rush prescribed and lectured to his pupils in the Pennsylvania Hospital twice every week during the season of the medical school, which extended from the beginning of November to the close of February. This was in 1796-97. ” p. 264.
