Beginning of a New Era

• Flexner report released in 1909
• Internal Medicine evolves as a specialty field
• Miami Medical College and Medical College of Ohio merge
  in 1908 to form the Ohio-Miami Medical College
  - Renamed University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in 1919
• Planning for a new hospital begins

Women and Early Medical Education in Cincinnati

• There was considerable debate whether women could be physicians.
• In 1883, the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery accepted the first female to medical school in Cincinnati.
  Only one year was required to receive a medical degree at that time, so she graduated in 1884.
• Her name was Edith Beauchamp and she went on to general practice in Hamilton, OH.
• For the next three years, the number of women accepted to the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery increased.
  - Abruptly, the board of trustees for the College decided to stop accepting women in 1886.
  - They felt that women were qualified to care for children and other women but not men.
  - As part of the College, a separate medical college for women was opened, Woman’s Medical College of Cincinnati.
• In 1895, another women’s medical college opened, Laura Memorial Medical College.
  - Class sizes were rather small, three to seven women, at each of the colleges.
  - In 1896, the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery decided to open their doors
  to women once againby accepting Emma Meinhardt to the all-male school.
• The small class sizes and a requirement set by the Association of American Medical Colleges
  in 1894 that medical schools should be four years of education threatened the existence
  of the women’s medical colleges.
• Both colleges closed in 1903, and the Miami Medical College absorbed the students.
  The Medical College of Ohio began admitting women in 1904 which resulted in integration
  of the sexes for medical education in Cincinnati.

More Changes to Cincinnati Medical Education- the Flexner Report

• Abraham Flexner was a school teacher from Louisville, but he had a
  tremendous impact on medical education in the United States.
  - After teaching for many years, he received further education from Harvard and studied in Germany.
  - He wrote a book called The American College that criticized education at American universities.
• The head of the Carnegie Foundation for Advancement of Teaching, Henry Pritchett, read the book.
  - He was so impressed with Flexner that he commissioned him to evaluate medical education in the United States.
  - Flexner began his research in 1908 and visited all 155 medical schools in the U.S.
• The report, published in 1910 was very critical of medical education.
  - Few, if any, admission standards existed with several colleges not even requiring a high school education
  - Inadequate equipment
  - Medical schools were being used as a supplemental source of income for existing physicians
• Concluded “…the curse of medical education is the excessive number of schools.
  The situation can improve only as weaker and superfluous schools are extinguished…”
• In addition to closing excessive schools, those that were open needed to be affiliated with academic centers.
  - Interestingly, two schools specifically listed as being suspect were Washington University in St. Louis,
  and University of California at San Francisco
• Under the direction of Dr. Forchheimer, Miami Medical College merged with the Medical
  College of Ohio to become the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.
• Dr. Forchheimer was appointed Chairman of the Department of Medicine in the unified
  medical school.
• He was followed by Dr. Edwin Mitchell who was an OB/GYN physician who gave up his
  practice to become chairman of the department.