Becoming a Physician: Medical Education in Great Britain, France, Germany, and the United States, 1750-1945 [Hardcover]

Thomas Neville Bonner (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0195062981 | ISBN-13: 978-0195062984 | Publication Date: January 4, 1996 | Edition: 1

Written by eminent education scholar Thomas Neville Bonner, Becoming A Physician is a groundbreaking, comprehensive history of Western medical education. The only work of its kind, it covers the United States, Great Britain, France, and Germany. Comparative in focus, the narrative unfolds within the context of social, political, and intellectual transformations that occurred in Europe and North America between the Enlightenment and Nazi Germany. Viewing the late eighteenth century as a watershed in the development of medical education, Bonner begins by describing how earlier practices evolved in the 1800s with the introduction of clinical practices. He then traces the growth of laboratory teaching in the nineteenth century and the twentieth-century preoccupation with establishing a university standard of medical education. Throughout, Bonner pays particular attention to the students, chronicling their daily lives and discussing changes in the medical school population and the various biases-- class, gender, racial, and religious--students and prospective students faced.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The author, a distinguished scholar and university administrator, complements his earlier To the Ends of the Earth: Women's Search for Education in Medicine (Harvard Univ. Pr., 1992) with a broader look at medical education. Bonner traces how such education evolved in four Western countries since the Enlightenment as their respective medical establishments gradually incorporated advances in natural sciences and developed a balance among theoretical, clinical, and laboratory approaches to instruction. Not merely an institutional study, Bonner's monograph describes the changing but always exhausting experiences of medical students and the glacial advances of women and minorities as they sought access to medical training. A scholarly and comprehensive analysis, Bonner's book is highly recommended for academic and medical libraries.
Kathy Arsenault, Univ. of South Florida-St. Petersburg Lib.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"A scholarly and comprehensive analysis, Bonner's book is highly recommended for academic and medical libraries."--Library Journal

"An extremely valuable addition to the history of medical education....Highly recommended."--Choice

"[A] superb book...[a] rarity, a genuinely comparative study....Clear, concise and comprehensive, this study will long remain definitive."--Nature

"Until now, no single author, to my knowledge, has possessed the intellectual bravery and linguistic skills needed to undertake a study spanning centuries and cultures....In addition to its impressive chronological and geographical range, Becoming A Physician possesses other strengths....for readers interested in seeing the big picture, Becoming A Physician offers by far the best available now."--JAMA Books

"This grandly researched and thoughtful study achieves a difficult goal- an integrated comparative study, rather than several unconnected national histories bound in a single volume."--The Journal of Interdisciplinary History

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 424 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 1 edition (January 4, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195062981
• ISBN-13: 978-0195062984
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,133,741 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.