THE DEPARTMENT OF POSTGRADUATE MEDICINE
THE Board of Regents of the University of Michigan in 1892 gave support to a program of postgraduate education when it authorized the faculty of the Department of Medicine and Surgery to admit medical graduates to undergraduate classes. This provision of the Regents was made in recognition of the rapid increase of medical knowledge. The discoveries of Pasteur were bringing about great changes in the practice of medicine and offering renewed hope in many of the most baffling problems in both medical and surgical fields. The medical graduate in search of further educational opportunities was being forced to look to the Old World medical centers. In extending the teaching facilities of the undergraduate Medical Department, the Regents, in a forward-looking policy, provided an opportunity in this country for the medical graduate to keep abreast of modern advances in practice.
The Department of Medicine and Surgery, in addition to admitting graduates to already established courses, the subject matter of which had been greatly increased since their graduation, offered special graduate courses in hygiene, bacteriology, electrotherapeutics, microscopic and gross pathology, physiology, histology, chemistry, and therapeutics. These were given once a year, in the summer, and were usually six weeks in length. This program continued with some interruption until 1920. As a substitute, one day of teaching each month was offered in the form of a composite program for practitioners. This plan, too, was finally discontinued, and various medical organizations, notably the Michigan State Medical Society, established postgraduate conferences throughout the state to which members of the University teaching staff frequently contributed. These conferences were well received by the medical profession, but there was a growing demand for greater continuity and more academic direction of the program.
In January, 1926, representatives of the University of Michigan Medical School and the Detroit College of Medicine and Surgery were invited to meet with the council of the Michigan State Medical Society to consider ways and means of meeting the rapidly growing needs for postgraduate study in Michigan. The meeting was held in Ann Arbor, and the officials of the council presented a résumé of their efforts in this field, of the difficulties experienced, and of the growing demands. Dr. Clarence C. Little, President of the University, and the faculties of both schools responded sympathetically and a committee of three, representing the two medical