Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1918 [PAGE 730]

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724

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OF TRUSTEES

[Marcfo 12,

CONTINUOUS WORK IN MEDICINE

(4) A recommendation from the Executive Faculty of the College of Medicine that the University should adopt, in accordance with a suggestion from the Surgeon General's Office, for the period of the war a continuous medical session running during the entire twelve months, dividing the calendar year into three terms of four months each, admitting candidates to each class approximately on June 1, October 1, and February 1 of each year. This will involve considerable additional expense but it will enable the University to graduate the present junior class February 1, 1919, instead of June 1, 1919, the present sophomore class October 1, 1919, instead of June 1, 1920, and the present freshman class June 1, 1921, instead of June 1, 1922, thus saving an entire year in the four-year medical course for the present freshman class. If this arrangement were carried out and the semester fees charged for the quadrimester period, a student wduld pay in three years the same amount as he now pays in four, and it is the opinion of the Dean of the College of Medicine, Doctor A. C. Eycleshyrrier, that these extra fees would defray the extra cost. The advantage, of course, is that the Government would be able to recruit its medical staff more rapidly under the continuous session plan than it can under the present, which includes a college year of vacation. There are difficulties in carrying out this scheme, as the law in Illinois stands, but the suggestion is made that the law may be amended at the request of the Surgeon General's Office. The recommendation has received the approval of the majority of the Council on Medical Education of the American Medical Association and of the Association of American Medical Colleges. I am not sure myself that the plan can be carried out. It certainly can not in this state unless the law is changed, but I think it would be a good plan to put it into effect for the sake of those students who are now in the Medical Reserve Corps and who may be called into active service during the vacation of the medical course as it is at present constituted, a measure which would throw the scheme of medical education as at present administered into considerable confusion. A telegram, received from the Surgeon General, Major General William C. Gorgas, under dmte of March n> says that while the Surgeon General does not feel justified in requesting any school to adopt the continuous session until the entire policy is fully defined, he will certainly welcome the action of any school proposing to put the continuous session in efficient operation.

On motion of Miss Watson, the President of the University was authorized to adopt the plan recommended by the Faculty of the College of Medicine if after further consideration it should prove feasible.

CONTINUOUS WORK IN PRE-JVIEDiCAL STUDIES

(5)

The following statement: In order to insure continuous preparation for the College of Medicine