Clinical Practice

Abstract

At most of the 12 voluntary hospitals with medical schools in 1935 London — accommodating about 3000 medical students in training — the consultants who worked and taught there were part-time. The senior surgeon or physician was nominally head of his discipline and jealous of his position. Professors were unusual, even in pathology where the work was also part-time: in the provincial universities full-time pathologists were common. The appointment of four full-time Professors to a hospital in London in 1935 was therefore novel. The three Professors of medicine, surgery and gynaecology were considered to hold ‘clinical’ posts: each had a Reader, two first Assistants, about four housemen and 150 beds.