Becoming a Physician: Medical Education in Great Britain, France, Germany, and the United States, 1750-1945

Written by eminent education scholar Thomas Neville Bonner, Becoming A Physician is a groundbreaking, comprehensive history of Western medical education. The only work of its kind, it covers the United States, Great Britain, France, and Germany. Comparative in focus, the narrative unfolds within the context of social, political, and intellectual transformations that occurred in Europe and North America between the Enlightenment and Nazi Germany. Viewing the late eighteenth century as a watershed in the development of medical education, Bonner begins by describing how earlier practices evolved in the 1800s with the introduction of clinical practices. He then traces the growth of laboratory teaching in the nineteenth century and the twentieth-century preoccupation with establishing a university standard of medical education. Throughout, Bonner pays particular attention to the students, chronicling their daily lives and discussing changes in the medical school population and the various biases-- class, gender, racial, and religious--students and prospective students faced.

Review :
"A scholarly and comprehensive analysis, Bonner's book is highly recommended for academic and medical libraries."--Library Journal "An extremely valuable addition to the history of medical education....Highly recommended."--CHOICE "[A] superb book...[A] rarity, a genuinely comparative study....Clear, concise and comprehensive, this study will long remain definitive."--Nature "Until now, no single author, to my knowledge, has possessed the intellectual bravery and linguistic skills needed to undertake a study spanning centuries and cultures....In addition to its impressive chronological and geographical range, Becoming A Physician possesses other strengths....for readers interested in seeing the big picture, Becoming A Physician offers by far the best available now."--JAMA Books "This grandly researched and thoughtful study achieves a difficult goal--an integrated comparative study, rather than several unconnected national histories bound in a single volume."--The Journal of Interdisciplinary History "An erudite volume based on the study of a remarkable range of archival and printed primary sources....[The book] is an outstanding contribution to the historical study of medical education...breaking new analytical ground."--Albion "This book is a valuable source of information that provides an important historical perspective."--Modern Pathology "[The book] is, ostensibly, a truly important work, and may be one of the most significant works in medical historiography to appear in recent times. It is a remarkable historical tableau, and Bonner presents the evolving and eclectic patterns with extraordinary detail as he skillfully weaves together the British, French, German, and American experiences."--Bookman's Review "This is a densely packed, informative book to which justice can never be done in a short review. This will be a book that all historians of nineteenth-and twentieth-century medicine will continually refer to as the standard authority on medical education."--Journal of the History of Medicine "This is a well told history....The author has provided and engaging account of studying medicine at different times in different places."--Integrative Physiological and Behavioral Science "Thomas Neville Bonner's Becoming a Physician is a masterly survey of medical education in Europe and the United States during the transition to modernity....Bonner's very fine book interweaves intellectual, social, and institutional history in a broad but well-balanced account. His work will be the essential starting point from now on for the study of modern medical education."--The Journal of American History "This readable, scholarly book presents a cross-cultural comparison of medical education over a period of two centuries."--Middlebury Magazine