The neurologists by Stephen Casper

Author:Stephen Casper [Casper, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Great Britain, General
ISBN: 9780719099816
Google: dQw-rgEACAAJ
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Published: 2015-01-15T00:44:58+00:00

Pragmatic choices in clinical neurology: the health service and neurologists

Although the members of the association did not meet throughout the war, it is clear that many were adopting new perspectives on politics and medical organisation. A new agenda for neurology was contrived partly by the ABN and partly by the Royal College of Physicians. On 29 January 1944, twenty-five members of the ABN convened ‘to discuss questions on the teaching and practice of Neurology and the possible Official Grading of Neurologists in the future’.90 At the close of the meeting six proposals had been adopted. Each would have substantial ramifications for neurology in the near future. The association’s members voted that the Standing Joint Committee of the three Royal Colleges be asked to recognise the ABN ‘as representing the specialty of neurology’ in Britain. The Standing Joint Committee had been formed in 1933 between the Royal College of Surgeons and the Royal College of Physicians to ‘consider matters of common concern’ in medicine and surgery.91 Historian Rosemary Stevens described the Joint Committee as one of the first existing opportunities for specialists and consultants to enter debates on ‘the sphere of national policy and planning’.92 The decision of the members of the ABN to request this recognition was therefore a movement towards the national recognition of neurology as plans for the nationalisation of medicine advanced in government.

The association’s members proposed that Charles Symonds should represent the association’s interests on the Beveridge Committee, provided the Royal College of Physicians desired a formal representative. Neurologists were concerned that their financial interests and autonomy should be properly defended in pending debates on national health insurance.93 They also unanimously recommended that psychiatrists and neurologists receive similar training, which should not commence ‘until after one year’s residence in Hospital after qualification’.94 This training would be spread over four years. There would no ‘Diploma in Neurology’ because it was considered ‘highly desirable that all neurologist specialists should possess a higher qualification in General Medicine, as the M.R.C.P., London’.95 It was also planned that representatives of the Royal Medico-Psychological Association should be solicited to form a joint subcommittee with neurologists from the ABN to ‘formulate a scheme for common basic training’.96 These proposals marked a new era for British neurology. Such wilful political agitation would have been unthinkable for neurologists even ten years before.

Subsequent ABN meetings in 1944 and 1945 enhanced these developments. The council of the Royal Medico-Psychological Association agreed to meet with representatives from the ABN to discuss the training of neurologists and psychiatrists. The results of those discussions have not been located, although in 1944 the ABN minutes recommended: ‘that the training and qualifications of specialists in neurology should be discussed at the Annual Meeting.’97 At that time the ABN’s council also recommended that ‘The Royal College of Physicians be requested to set up a Committee to consider the training and qualifications of specialists in neurology.’98 The Committee on Neurology was subsequently formed.99

Generally the years between 1944 and 1950 marked a period of increasing political participation by neurologists.

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