Med School Considers Class Make-up

The faculty council of the Medical School yesterday began considering increasing the size of its incoming classes to raise the number of socio-economically disadvantaged students in the school.

Dr. David D. Potter, professor of Neurobiology who presented the issue to the council, said last night the federal government's rising interest in admitting more disadvantaged students to achieve a more equitable delivery of health care, discussed in the Medical School's annual report, is one reason the issue is particularly "timely."

The report, written by Robert H. Ebert, dean of the Medical School, and released last week, discusses the effect that Health Manpower legislation now in Congress will have on Harvard. The legislation calls for medical schools to receive federal grants in return for obliging its students to work in rural or ghetto areas.

A study released last spring reported a sharp decrease in the percentage of middle class students admitted to the Med School.

He estimated that of the class just admitted "pretty close to 10 per cent" are disadvantaged. "This may not be enough but at least a start is made," F. Sargent Cheevers '32, dean of the Med School admissions, said yesterday.

Potter said "one likely outcome" of increasing the number of disadvantaged students in the class is "improving the delivery of health care to the groups from which such students came."

Interest

Cheever said last night maintaining that "people coming from economically deprived areas are more likely to return" is "an interesting and promising thesis."

The Med School faculty will have to consider the amount of available scholarship money before it decides to enlarge the class--perhaps by as many as 15 places--in order to accept more disadvantaged students, Cheever added.

The Medical School defines socio-economically disadvantaged students on U.S. Labor Department standards.