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The legislative committee of the OSMA was not satisfied with the final bill, but it was willing to accept it because the committee was convinced that the bill could be easily remedied in the future. Even though the act fell “far short of perfection,” it fundamentally altered who could become an officially sanctioned physician in the state. The OSMA, like most other state societies, decided it was more important to pass something then to continue without any licensing law.<ref> A. C. Panton, M.D., “Address,” <i>Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the Oregon State Medical Society 16</i> (1889): 6</ref> Strong also stated that the bill would silence the dissent of diploma-less practicing physicians. As long as any future bill did not encroach on those physicians’ rights, he argued that they would support future legislation. He stated it would be in the best interest of those physicians to support “the most stringent law against the admission of others.”<ref><i>Proceedings Sixteenth Annual Meeting</i> (1889): 108.</ref> Strong understood that “it is to be hoped that it may go through a course of evolution that may ultimately bring our State abreast of the other states and territories in respect to legislation to regulate medicine and surgery.”<ref>C.C. Strong, M.D., “Opening Address,” <i>Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the Oregon State Medical Society 17</i> (1889): 6.</ref>
Under the original 1889 act, physicians and surgeons were required to receive a diploma from a medical institution in good standing, but the act explicitly stated that the medical board was not permitted to discriminate against the holders of genuine licenses or diplomas from a licensed medical school or system. Therefore, the Oregon law did not discriminate against Homeopaths or Eclectics but due to sloppy drafting, the law not only avoided discriminating against any of three major sects, it prevented the board from excluding physicians who acquired medical degrees from diploma mills. <ref> <i>Oregon’s Sessions Laws</i>, “An Act to Regulate the Practice of Medicine,” (1889).</ref> In the end, Strong was correct. Even though the law originally was amended to eliminate the drafting problem, the 1891 version was modified in several ways, and it ultimately resembled the original bill proposed by the OSMA rather than the bill promulgated by Pope.
The report of the State Medical Board to the OSMA by James Dickson, M.D, a member of the new board, addressed these changes. Dickson told the OSMA that the phrasing of the original bill was flawed and the board’s lawyers were concerned that if the law was challenged, it most likely would be scrapped by the courts. <ref>James Dickson, M.D. “Report of the State Medical Board,” <i>Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual Meeting of the Oregon State Medical Society 18</i> (1891): 176-177.</ref> The 1891 amendment eliminated this problem by augmenting the power of the medical board to set its own standards for medical schools. The board was no longer obligated to admit any physician who had graduated from a university if it had a proper charter. Instead, the board was allowed to set certain rules, as had been originally intended, to determine what the board considered to be a school in good standing. The board immediately decided to require that medical schools mandate three sessions of six months each of school and no two of those sessions could be in one year. The board, in essence, adopted the recommendations of the Illinois State Board of Health. Unlike Illinois, Oregon did not have the resources to conduct any meaningful investigations on its own. <ref><i>Proceedings Eighteenth Annual Meeting</i> (1891): 177-180.</ref>
Under the promulgated standards, Dickson postulated that graduates of forty of the existing one-hundred-and-thirty-five American medical institutions would be forced to take an exam under Oregon law. The 1891 revision also placed physicians who registered with the county clerks under the control of the medical board. Under the 1889 Act, the board lacked jurisdiction over these physicians and could not discipline them for dishonorable conduct. The 1891 act remedied the problem and compelled all practitioners to submit themselves to the board for a license. Not only did the medical board draft standards; it immediately exercised its statutory authority and began rejecting applicants.
