Conant: Medical Schools Still Need Federal Aid

President Conant said yesterday that federal aid was still needed by American medical schools. The National Fund for Medical Education --set up last week to raise $5,000,000 privately--will be of great value, according to Conant, especially because it will make the public conscious of the desperate need.

But the money raised by the Foundation will not be enough, Conant added. "None of us would be in favor of federal aid if it were not necessary.' The public money should always be matched by private gifts, the president said.

Conant also sharply disagreed with an attack on medical school efficiency issued by a committee of which Provost Buck is a member.

"It would be my judgment . . . that the budgets have already been cut to the bone. We are economizing and are paying a heavy price in not producing as many and the kind of doctors we should to take advantage of the great scientific discoveries of the century."

The following are excerpts from a statement on Financing Medical Education, issued last week by the Commission on Financing Higher Education. Provost Buck and Overseer Laird Bell '04 are two members of the 12-man commission:

The American tendency toward extravagance has entered medical education, even as elsewhere. There are too many courses, overlapping and duplicating one another. Departments are too often autonomous in fixing what and how much to teach.

There has been too little careful medical planning and control of the medical curriculum. Oftentimes outside pressures from medical societies and licensing boards encourage costly teaching practices without assuming any interest in or responsibility for the necessary income.

The time is ripe for a revaluation of medical educational concepts and techniques, with a concern for possible economies of instructional costs. Professional organizations have not been hospitable to outside suggestions about how this should be done. Medical deans and medical schools have not yet demonstrated that their operations are adequately economical and efficient, although some work is under way to explore improvements and economies in medical educational practices.

If the medical educators do not achieve their own educational improvement, outside investigation will be necessary. We believe that those private foundations especially interested in medical knowledge should give inincreasing attention to problems of the medical curriculum and instructional cost.

At the same time economies alone cannot provide all the present financial needs of medical education. High quality medical education will remain costly, and those costs must be met.