Leo v. Board of Medical Examiners

36 Cal.App.2d 490 (1940) SIDNEY DAVID LEO, Respondent,

v.

BOARD OF MEDICAL EXAMINERS OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, Appellant.

Civ. No. 12279. California Court of Appeals. Second Appellate District, Division Two.

January 10, 1940. Earl Warren, Attorney-General, and Lionel Browne, Deputy Attorney-General, for Appellant.

Finlayson, Bennett & Morrow and Henry L. Knoop for Respondent.

The Court.

The Board of Medical Examiners has taken this appeal from a judgment of the trial court granting a peremptory writ of mandate requiring the board to permit petitioner, Sidney David Leo, to take the examination for a [491] physician's and surgeon's certificate at the earliest available date.

Petitioner regularly filed his application with the board for permission to take the examination for a physician's and surgeon's license. The application was rejected by the board solely for the reason that it failed to comply with section 2193 (c) of the Business and Professions Code, in that it did not appear that petitioner had been admitted or licensed to practice medicine and surgery in Switzerland, where the university from which petitioner received his degree of doctor of medicine is located. Petitioner, who sought to be examined as an applicant from a foreign medical school approved by the board, was at all times a citizen of the United States and for a number of years had been a resident of the state of California. His grammar school and high school education was completed in the public schools of the city of New York. Thereafter he fulfilled the requirements of a regular four-year college course in New York University and received the degree of bachelor of science. Petitioner then entered the University of Albert-Ludwig in Germany where he received the first year of his medical instruction. Thereafter he entered the University of Basle in Switzerland, where he completed his medical studies. Both medical schools were approved by the board as complying with the requirements of the Business and Professions Code for resident courses of professional instruction in medicine and surgery. After graduating from the University of Basle, petitioner returned to the United States and served eighteen months in residence in the Los Angeles County General Hospital, which is a hospital approved by the board for interneship. It is conceded that petitioner possesses every required educational and moral qualification and that his application fully complied with the requirements of the Business and Professions Code, except as to section 2193 (c). The Medical Practice Act, prior to 1935, contained no requirement that applicants from foreign medical schools must be admitted or licensed to practice in the countries in which such schools are located. In 1935 the Medical Practice Act was amended by adding the license requirement which in 1937 became section 2193 (c) of the Business and Professions Code. At that time petitioner had completed all but the last semester of the final year of his