Volume 72 Number 4 July 2005	back to contents

From the Dr. Henry D. Janowitz Division of Gastroenterology, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY.

Address all correspondence to Dr. J.H. Baron, Division of Gastroenterology, Box 1069, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, One East 100th Street, New York, NY 10029-6574; e-mail: hughbaron@aol.com

Revised version of a paper presented at the Oxford-Mount Sinai Consortium on Bioethics and Social Responsibility at Oriel College, Oxford, on April 1, 2004, and accepted for publication October 2004.

Abstract

Many Americans studied medicine in Britain in the 18th century, but the major influx to Europe began after 1815, when the French Revolution’s reforms of health care and medical teaching had reached their zenith. Americans were well trained in France (and later in Germany) in medicine, surgery, pathology and clinical science, and brought these skills back to the US. Their training had been in countries with government-run, relatively egalitarian health care systems. On their return, they did not seek to transplant such a system to the US, but they did introduce European medical science and medical techniques, and something of the European medical education system.

KEYWORDS

American medical students, Europe, Britain, France, Germany, medical schools.

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