A DEFENSE OF THE RECENT GRADUATE

To the Editor:  —It has been my good fortune to attend many of the meetings of the Annual Congress on Medical Education, Medical Licensure and Hospitals. The beneficial influence of these meetings on medical education is generally admitted. The spirit at the last meeting especially was emphatically progressive. There is one item, however, about which the opinion of many of the older and most influential members seems entirely wrong; that is, the relative ability and preparation of the recent and the older graduate to practice medicine. The recent graduate, when he begins practice, is vastly better equipped than the graduate of thirty or forty years ago was after ten or more years of practice, and in most cases is better than the graduate of thirty or more years' experience. This, of course, would not apply to a specialty like surgery, or to practice with a group of older men, which