Brown, Thomas R.

Sir William Osler (1849-1919) was a Canadian physician. He has been called one of the greatest icons of modern medicine. Osler was a pathologist, educator, bibliophile, historian, author, and renowned practical joker. Perhaps Osler's greatest contribution to medicine was to insist that students learned from seeing and talking to patients and the establishment of the medical residency. This latter idea spread across the English-speaking world and remains in place today in most teaching hospitals. Through this system, doctors in training make up much of a hospital's medical staff. Osler was a pr...