Making a Firmer Commitment

FASARGENT CHEEVER 32, who chaired a committee reviewing Medical School admissions policies, says that the recommendations the committee made to the Med School faculty last week regarding the equal admissions of men and women amount to an attempt to "let nature have its chance to work a balance here." Cheever explains that although the report mentions no quotas, it envisions a period when men and women will apply in equal numbers to the Med School and when the accepted class will reflect, in its ratio of men to women, the proportion of qualified men to qualified women in the applicant pool, even if that means accepting more women than men.

It seems reasonable to express such good faith towards an admissions office which has repeatedly accepted a greater percentage of women than the percentage in the applicant pool. Last year, for example, the admissions committee accepted one-third women from a pool that was 28-per-cent female. But if, as the Cheever report urges, recruitment measures are introduced, and the number of women applicants increases to parity, there is no guarantee here that the class will contain equal numbers. Dr. Leon Eisenberg, chairman of the admissions committee, says that constituencies in the largely male Med School faculty that would oppose one-to-one admissions are now "underground," but are likely to surface before such a policy would be implemented. The Cheever report should have gone further, by recommending a one-to-one admissions policy.

The report shows a similar liberal dedication to goals and not quotas in its resolutions regarding minority acceptances. Here again, the admissions committee at the Medical School has over the last two years-apparently demonstrated good intentions, by accepting minority students in a reported 20-per-cent proportion that matches the nation's ratio. The Cheever report recommends that if anything, minority acceptances should exceed one fifth, to keep up with an increase in the proportion in the population of minorities below the age of 25.

THE REVIEW COMMITTEE's recommendations also address federal health manpower legislation, by stating that the Medical School should not accept certain numbers or certain kinds of students on the basis of what kinds of doctors the government would be seeking in the National Health Service Corps, if Congress sets up that medical army. Clearly, the Medical School should not expect or encourage a great degree of specialization among its applicants from colleges. Still, the Medical School is training doctors for service in society and should select students on the basis of the "putative needs of society," a policy the Cheever report opposes.

Thus whether the review committee acknowledges it or not, accepting a class of 50-per-cent women would-show responsibility for the "putative needs of society." Fewer than one in ten of the doctors in this country are women, and this state of affairs is not only unfair to the women who would become physicians, but to the women in this country who have a right to demand medical treatment from other women.

The Cheever report perhaps places too much faith in the Medical School faculty and its admissions policies. Still, it must be hoped that the faculty, when it votes on the report next month, will approve the committee's statements regarding acceptances of women, then go further by instituting a one-to-one acceptance ratio.