[10] In England, the two universities (Oxford and Cambridge) were only sporadically interested in medical teaching, which was mainly carried out in the London hospitals.
[11] It was not until the establishment of the University of London in 1836, however, that students at the hospital medical schools could earn degrees.
[13] Shortly after, in 1837, Durham also became the first British university to teach engineering (although the course closed after a few years), followed only a few months later by King's College London.
Since 2014, however, the Common Award degrees, validated by Durham, have offered a more unified training across the theological colleges.
[17] Some colleges continue to offer other degrees in addition to the Common Awards, such as the Cambridge Bachelor of Theology at the Cambridge Theological Federation Legal studies in England were mainly confined to the Inns of Court until the late nineteenth century.
for ordination was more useful than the legal training it provided, and it was generally seen as an easy option for those who couldn't cope with the mathematics on the B.A.
However, it has only been since the 1960s that law schools have taken on a leading role in training lawyers and truly established professional degrees.
This led to the accreditation of degrees by the relevant professional bodies and, in the case of engineering, to the Washington Accord – an international agreement between engineering regulatory bodies to recognise professional degrees accredited in each country – signed originally in 1989 by the UK, US, Australia, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand, and since expanded to include many other countries.
[21][22][23] The Bachelor of Medicine, or M.B., was the first medical degree to be granted in the United States and Canada.
These eliminated the general education and long lecture terms of the university schools, making them much more popular.
Without effective regulation, abuses arose, and national conventions in 1846 and 1847 led to the establishment of the American Medical Association.
[29] The President of Yale, Arthur Twining Hadley, stated in the early 20th century that: "However convenient it might be to insist on the possession of a bachelor's degree by all pupils in the schools of law or medicine, I feel that it would be a violation of our duty to these professions to hedge ourselves about by any such artificial limitations.
spread, but encountered opposition, and Harvard, which imposed graduate entry as a requirement for its LL.B.
The second shift to the J.D., again without a change of curriculum, came in the 1960s, with all American Bar Association–accredited professional degrees adopting the nomenclature by 1971.
[31] In the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, other professions, particularly in clinical fields, transitioned their professional degrees to doctorates, following the example of the M.D.
are multi-disciplinary professional degrees awarded for studies in areas related to public health.
degree focuses on public health practice, as opposed to research or teaching.
[32] The spread of professional doctorates raised concerns about the standards of the new degrees, particularly in cases such as physical therapy, where the standard set by the American Physical Therapy Association for the doctorate is the same as that for the master's degree.
The US Department of Education defined these as: "A first-professional degree was an award that required completion of a program that met all of the following criteria: (1) completion of the academic requirements to begin practice in the profession; (2) at least two years of college work before entering the program; and (3) a total of at least six academic years of college work to complete the degree program, including prior required college work plus the length of the professional program itself.
"[34] The use of the term "first-professional" was discontinued by the Department of Education as of 2010–11, when new post-baccalaureate award categories were introduced.
As with the "first professional degree", this classification also requires that the total time in higher education is at least six years.
Higher professional degrees may also be offered in fields that do not have specific academic requirements for entry, such as Fine Arts.
[52][61] Some professional degrees are designed specifically for trainees or members within a particular organisation, rather than being available via general enrollment.
Examples of these include the Church of England's Common Awards with Durham University and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants' B.Sc.
[62][63] In medicine, individual countries specify rules for recognising foreign qualifications; in the US, for example, this is carried out by the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG) and in the UK by the General Medical Council (GMC).
[66] At least one state in the US, Wisconsin, permits foreign graduates to use the title "MD" if licensed to practice in the US.
degree to graduates of approved foreign medical schools upon application and payment of a fee.