Innovations in medical teaching rarely go unheralded or unanalyzed, but the gradual emergence of the system of visiting professorships during the past decade has somehow escaped the notice of social anthropologists and educators. Perhaps it is considered unworthy. Regardless of its value, however, the visiting professorship is now so universal and consumes such a significant segment of highly talented energy, that it warrants close analysis.HistoryIn leisurely days when travel was by pullman and journals sparse, isolated medical schools west of the Hudson invited famous clinicians as visiting professors who functioned much as medieval minstrels to bring word of . . .