Doctor of medicine profession (MD)

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Types of health care providers

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Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1920), after graduating from Geneva College of Medicine in upstate New York, became the first woman granted an MD degree in the United States.

The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine opened in 1893. It is cited as being the first medical school in America of "genuine university-type, with adequate endowment, well-equipped laboratories, modern teachers devoted to medical investigation and instruction, and its own hospital in which the training of physicians and healing of sick persons combined to the optimal advantage of both." It is considered the first, and the model for all later research universities. Johns Hopkins Medical School served as a model for the reorganization of medical education. After this, many sub-standard medical schools closed.

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Medical schools had become mostly diploma mills, with the exception of a few schools in large cities. Two developments changed that. The first was the "Flexner Report," published in 1910. Abraham Flexner was a leading educator who was asked to study American medical schools. His highly negative report and recommendations for improvement led to the closing of bad schools and the creation of standards of excellence for a real medical education.

The other development was Sir William Osler, a Canadian who was one of the greatest professors of medicine in modern history. He worked at McGill University in Canada, and then at the University of Pennsylvania, before being recruited to be the first physician-in-chief and one of the founders of Johns Hopkins University. There he established the first residency training and was the first to bring students to the patient's bedside. Before that time, medical students learned from textbooks only until they went out to practice, so they had little practical experience. Osler also wrote the first comprehensive, scientific textbook of medicine and later went to Oxford as Regent professor, where he was knighted. He established patient-oriented care and many ethical and scientific standards.