Medical Teaching by a Non-Medical Specialist

MEDICAL TEACHING BY A NONMEDICAL SPECIALIST C. JUDSON HERRICK, Ph.D.* The marvelous improvement in medical practice during the last fifty years is due in large measure to revolutionary changes in medical education , and the requirements ofcurrent practice have in turn set the pattern of the medical curriculum. This metamorphosis of American medical schools came slowly and tempestuously. I have observed this movement for nearly seventy years, first as a spectator and later as a participant, and this experience has given me firsthand information about one of its controversial features. The training ofphysicians must be administered by those who know the requirements ofgood medicalpractice. The medical faculties, accordingly, have traditionally been drawn from the ranks ofexperienced practitioners, and the employment ofteachers without medical training met strong opposition for obvious reasons. Because my appointment to a professorship in a medical faculty fifty years ago was one ofthe early instances ofsuch use of specialists without medical training, I have been asked to report upon its practical operation as I saw it. It has been my fortune (or misfortune) on several occasions to assume duties for which I was quite unprepared by reason oflack ofnative ability and/or adequate training. Some ofthese duties were imposed upon me by circumstances beyond my control; others were accepted as calculated risks by my own choice. A typical illustration of the former came in 1918, when unforeseen exigencies ofmilitary service led to my assignment to the Army Medical Museum in Washington with unspecified duties. Shortly thereafter, when the resident pathologist was ordered overseas, my commanding officer, * Professor Emeritus of Neurology, Department of Anatomy, University of Chicago. Present address: 236 Morningside Drive, Grand Rapids 6, Michigan. I? Colonel W. O. Owen, directed me to take over all Captain Cattell's duties. "Very well, Sir," I replied. "You understand that I am not a pathologist ." "Perhaps you weren't yesterday. You are today." So it happened that Major Herrick became a pathologist by executive order, although the Colonel was fully aware that the Major knew nothing about pathology. It was up to the Major to learn fast and to find pathologists who knew more than he did. In contrast with such coercion, almost everybody has occasion once in a while to choose from among several possible courses of action the one that offersthe bestprospectofadvantageinview ofitsrequirementsandhis own fitness to satisfy them. If the most desirable opening is in an unfamiliar field, its selection may involve serious risk. This was the problem with which I was confronted in 1907 when the invitation came to join the medical faculty ofthe University ofChicago, although I had no medical training or experience. To explain the nature of the risks involved for both members ofthe proposed contract, I will first sketch in outline my previous training and teaching experience. A man in his eighty-ninth year has more experience in retrospect than in prospect. As this experience is reviewed, I realize that my education (which is not yet finished), from first to last, has consisted very largely in learning my own limitations and what to do about them. This involves adjustment to surroundings in such a way as to make the best possible use ofnative abilities and to compensate for deficiencies. From this it follows that accurate knowledge ofthe family history and ofthe environment in the early formative years is an indispensable part ofany biography. These essential facts I have recorded in the biography ofmy brother Clarence (1), and only a few ofthe details need be mentioned here. Our grandfather, Nathan Herrick, moved with his family from Stowe, Vermont, to the midwestern frontier in 1854, and our father, Henry Nathan Herrick, reared his family near or in Minneapolis, Minnesota, under pioneer conditions from 1858 to 1885. Clarence was born onJune 22, 1858. Our father was pastor of the First Free Baptist Church of Minneapolis from 1866 to the end of 1871, and I was born in the parsonage on October 6, 1868. Father was obliged to resign his pastorate because C.Judson Herrick · Medical Teaching Perspectives in Biology and Medicine · Autumn 1957 offailing health, and he then moved his family to a small outlying farm from which he had during previous years drawn most ofthe...