REFORM OF MEDICAL EDUCATION Few bodies in the history of British medicine can have had a greater opportunity or more responsibility than the Interdepartmental Committee appointed in March, 1942, under the chairmanship of Sir William Goodenough "to inquire into the organization of medical schools, particularly in regard to facilities for teaching and research, and to make recommendations." Progress in the science and art of medicine is inseparably connected with the facilities which our medical

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... chools provide to attract the right men and to enable them to do their best work. The doctor's service to the commiunity depends not only on his innate gifts but on the way in which he has been trained to think and do. And so the nature of medical education and the organization and facilities of our medical schools are some of the most potent factors in shaping the standard of medicine. At no previous time has there been an opportunity to survey the whole of medical education, in prder to remedy its defects, with more certainty that something must be done. Change is inevitable ; the destruction wrought by war and the people's desire for an improved health service make it so. This eagerly awaited and now published report is a long one-312 pages, including 28 pages of summary-and it is impossible here to note more than a few of its chief points. The way is to be made easier for the student. All medical schools are to become co-educational. To increase the field from which students are selected, increased financial grants and a simplified machinery for distributing them are recommended. Students should not be selected on examination results alone. Accommodation should be provided in halls of residence for part of the undergraduate period, and for specific purposes in hospital during part of clinical training. The instrument of medical education should be a medical teaching centre catering for a student entry of 80 to 100 for the clinical years; and it should comprise a medical school which should be a faculty, college, or school of the university, a parent teaching hospital of 950 to 1,000 beds, and a group of neighbouring hospitals and clinics to provide supplementary facilities for clinical teaching. The governing bodies of medical school, parent teaching hospital, and associated teaching hospitals are to remain separate, but their work is to be co-ordinated by interchange of personnel and through common advisory machinery for selection of staff. In the main the details as to how these objects should be attained are left to the schools themselves. Important suggestions relating to certain schools are, however, made.