Question

back in days

what was the first medical school to require a college degree for admission ?

Answer 1

( ******) . back in days

what was the first medical school to require a college degree for admission ?

In 1765, students were admitted to “anatomical lectures” and a course on “the theory and practice of physik” at the College of Philadelphia. Thus began the first medical school in the USA—at that time, of course, “America” simply consisted of 13 colonies. Eventually, after various convulsions and name changes, the College of Philadelphia would transmute into the University of Pennsylvania and the two courses of lectures into the university's Perelman School of Medicine.

The founders of the medical school in Philadelphia, John Morgan and William Shippen, Jr, had received their medical education in the UK at the University of Edinburgh. As students, they had discussed the need for some such training in the USA. Shippen, who left Europe first, waited for Morgan to return, and was furious when Morgan, acting alone, proposed to the Trustees of the College of Philadelphia that they establish a medical school with himself as its founder and first professor. The competition and hostility between these two men was to last for the rest of their lives.

The Medical College of Philadelphia offered two degrees, Bachelor of Medicine and Doctor of Medicine. For a Bachelor of Medicine degree, the student had to take one course of lectures in anatomy, materia medica, chemistry, the theory and practice of physic, and clinical lectures, attend the practice of the Pennsylvania Hospital for a year, serve an apprenticeship to “some reputable practitioner in Physic”, show his knowledge of Latin and mathematics, and pass a public examination. For a doctorate, the student had to be 24 years old, to have acquired a bachelor's degree in medicine at least 3 years earlier, and to write and publicly defend a thesis (to be published at his own expense).