There are numerous other cities where mergers might be brought about if those interested in general education and those in medical education in each city would work together to secure them. For example, if all the medical colleges of any large city, such as Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis or others, could be merged into one great university medical school, such as are to be found in Berlin, Paris or Vienna, it would be of the greatest possible advantage to medical education in America.
In the evolution of general and medical education in this country it is becoming more and more evident that a well-rounded university needs a strong medical department, and it is now equally clear that a medical school cannot reach the highest stage of its development except as the medical department of a strong university. It is evident that within a few years the medical schools of this country will, with few exceptions, be the medical departments of universities. Fortunately for the medical school, the university needs the medical school quite as much as the medical school needs the university, so that almost any independent medical school of real merit can secure desirable union with a university. And this change will solve most of our present problems in medical education.
Since our last conference there have been five important mergers of medical colleges by which nine medical schools are replaced by four stronger ones. These mergers were as follows:
1. At Louisville, Ky., the Louisville and Hospital Medical College, the Kentucky School of Medicine and the University of Louisville Medical Department united, retaining the name of the University of Louisville Medical Department. This leaves but one regular medical college in Louisville, where there were five colleges two years ago. As a direct result of this merger, the school has received $25,000 from the city of Louisville, and steps have been taken to build a new city hospital, which is to be largely under the control of the medical school.
2. At Cincinnati the merger between the Medical College of Ohio and the Miami Medical College has been completed, the new school to be the Medical Department of the University of Cincinnati. The building of an enormous new city hospital has already been started near the university campus, and a new medical college building will be erected adjoining this hospital. The outlook for this new school is very encouraging.
3. The Keokuk Medical College, College of Physicians and Surgeons, located at Keokuk, Iowa, has turned all its property and good will over to the Drake University, College of Medicine, at Des Moines, Iowa.
Amalgamation of the Cooper Medical College with Leland Stanford University is announced. Henceforth the San Francisco institution will be designated the School of Medicine of Stanford University. The affiliation was given approval sometime ago, and it only remained for the board of trustees of the University to formally accept the gift.
Why can't the independent medical colleges of Baltimore come together? Such an event would accrue to the best interests of all concerned, and would greatly tend to eliminate Baltimore as one of the dark spots upon the medical educational horizon.
NURSES WIN DIPLOMAS.
In spotless white and amid a bower of flowers, 16 pretty young women were handed their diplomas yesterday as graduates of the University Hospital School for Nurses by the Dean, Prof. R. Dorsey Coale. There were 17 nurses to graduate this year, but one of them, Miss Catherine M. Dukes, is seriously ill and could not attend.