I believe that medicine is one of the last guild systems, protected by law, and encumbered by all the rites and burdens thereof. The young acolytes are exploite

I believe that medicine is one of the last guild systems, protected by law, and encumbered by all the rites and burdens thereof. The young acolytes are exploited by the old masters in return for an education which all claim cannot be delivered through any other mechanism (and actively preventing all attempts to try). The young must constantly prove themselves worthy of medicine, and the promise of future earnings and social standing (along with all the benefits of mastery within the system), and a guild master can lay any number of traps in the path of a prospective but unpopular aspirant in order to trip them up and toss them out.