EARL DE GREY AND RIPON,in presenting a Bill to amend the Law relating to the Qualification of Practitioners in Medicine and Surgery, said, their Lordships were aware that there were at present a considerable number of separate corporations and bodies having power to confer licences upon gentlemen desirous of entering the medical profession, and that these licences entitled the recipients to be placed on the Medical Register. In the three kingdoms there were no less than nineteen licensing bodies, and it was, therefore, not to be wondered at that there should be a material difference in the terms under which they admitted their licentiates, and as to the nature of the examination to which those licentiates were subjected. Some of the bodies confined their examination to surgery, and others to medicine; while the fact of being placed on the Medical Register entitled the persons to be considered legal practitioners both in surgery and in medicine. It was proposed in the Bill to substitute for these various modes of entering the medical profession a single Examining Board in each of the three kingdoms, and to require uniformity in the character of the examinations. With that view it was proposed to give to the existing medical authorities—who were entitled to fair consideration on account of the services they had rendered to the profession, power to submit to the General Medical Council a scheme for the constitution of the new examining Boards; but with this restriction, that if any of them did not exercise that power within the time limited in the Bill, the power would lapse to the General Medical Council, who should themselves propose a scheme. The scheme when prepared would have to be submitted to the Privy Council before coming into operation; and their sanction would also be required as regarded the rules and regulations to be made by the General Medical Council for the conduct of the examinations. There was no intention to interfere with, the existing corporations with regard to their higher degrees. He had every reason to hope the measure would not be unacceptable to those bodies and to the public. 1496
A Bill to amend the Law relating to the Qualification of Practitioners in Medicine and Surgery, and otherwise to amend the Medical Act, 1858—Was presented by The LORD PRESIDENT; read 1a. (No. 69.)