The Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons and the Training of Surgeons in the Early Modern Period

AbstractTraining, examination and quality standards of surgeons are topics of interest for the present international surgical community. In this review, surgical training and examination are discussed from the historical perspective on the basis of the regulations of the Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons (1461-1736). In Amsterdam, in that period, surgeons usually underwent a 5-year training in a master-mate relationship under the guidance of a master surgeon in a “surgeon's store”. The trainee was expected to acquire additional knowledge from weekly anatomy lessons on the body of a deceased person, given by the “praelector anatomiae” in the anatomy theater. After successful completion, the master handed over to his apprentice a so-called “education letter”, in which the master stated that the trainee had worked to his satisfaction with diligence and devotion in his “surgeon’s store” throughout the 5 years. This letter was required for participation of the trainee in the examination to become a surgeon. The learning period ended with a 'master’s examination', in which the manufacture of lancets, bloodletting and a trepanning of a skull were indispensable elements. The master’s examination as the ultimate test of competence at the end of surgical training is currently absent from the surgical specialty program in many countrie s, including Greece. The introduction of a modern master’s examination could be considered in the interest of enforcing explicit qualit...
Source: Hellenic Journal of Surgery - Category: Surgery Source Type: research