PROF.
FRANKLIN D.
BARKER
Pre-Medics
HE
past thirty years have witnessed a steady increase in
the number of pre-medical students from a yearly
enrollment of six, to two hundred and fifty. The
University of Nebraska was first to recognize the
advantages of organizing pre-medical students as a
definite group. This group was the first to have
assigned to it a special adviser.
Close association develops a fine
esprit de corps as evidenced by a definiteness and
earnestness of purpose and keen academic rivalry.
Contact with medical men in the monthly meetings of
the group and class instruction under instructors
especially interested in medical education create a
stimulating and helpful atmosphere.
In these thirty years, about
three thousand students have registered as pre-medics.
Fifteen per cent have dropped out. Of these who
completed the pre-medical course, sixty per cent have
eventually entered a college of medicine, and
seventy-five per cent of these have completed the
course in medicine.
The future of medicine will
necessarily determine the future of pre-medical
education. If the ideas and efforts of a few
reactionaries prevail, the present four-year course in
medicine will be "despecialized" and condensed into
two years and the pre-medical requirement lowered to a
high school course. The majority of medical men, with
vision, insist on a five-year course, including a
year's internship, preceeded by two to four college
years of specialized pre-medical training.
Our students, with two years of
pre-medical training have shown an ability to pursue
successfully the medical course, equal to that of
students having had a three or four-year preparatory
course. Our students have also been able to compete
successfully with graduates from every College of
Medicine in the United States.
The important work of heating the
sick, alleviating suffering, keeping people well,
happy and useful, calls for more than average
mentality, a willingness to spend long, hard years in
preparation, a love for the work, a sense of immense
responsibility and a joy in service to mankind.
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