SOCIAL SERVICE HAS NO PLACE

The program of the Medical School Society has been built upon three pillars Information, Recreation and Education.

1. Information:

Since the founding of the Society in 1913 this function has played a major part in its activities. Its features include:

a) Room Registry: The value of the room registry has been recognized by the administration of the school for, many years. It was not until last year however that they opened their hearts and gave us stenographical succor. For this and certain, intangible considerations we are greatly indebted. A list comprising over two hundred certified addresses was prepared and distributed to entering students. Through a system of investigation and student questionnaires we have been able to establish on file a permanent list of approved rooming places. With the advent of the new palatial Medical School Dormitory this feature will undoubtedly undergo considerable modification with the coming year.

b) Expense Pamphlet: For several years statistics have been gathered from the student body embodying the pertinent facts concerning the cost in cold cash of studying medicine. This information together with a classified list of available positions for self-help, has been worked up, tabulated and published in pamphlet form.

c) Letter of Welcome. Map of Medical School Environs: Those together with the Room Registry and Expense Pamphlet were mailed to each matriculating student.

d) Bureau of Information. For ten days prior to the opening of school, and the first few days thereafter, a bureau of information was maintained by the Society. This affords us an opportunity of rendering personal service of undoubted value both to the entering students and the Society.

2. Recreation:

a) Reception to Entering Students, September 30, 1926. Speakers, President Lowell, Assistant Dean Worth Hale, and Acting Dean W. B. Cannon. This was followed by an informal reception with music and refreshments. Attendance 250.

b) The Student's Room. Support and Maintenance. Since 1911 there have been been two organizations, the Phillips Brooks House Association and the Students' Association, to foster extra-curricular activities in the Medical School. These have sometimes been rivals, some-times complementary and always unnecessary by one. Their activities have fluctuated like a see saw with the Phillips Brooks House Association sitting on one end and the Students Association on the other. During the last three years the Phillips Brooks House Association has steadily mounted with the Student Association dipping downward. Such was the tendency until June, 1926, (an eventful date!) when the end of the sec-saw bearing the frail Students Association bumped the ground and our rival toppled off the plank altogether, bequeathing in its last gasp its residuaries (all bad bargains) to our committee. This year, then, we found on our hands a spacious Students Room to be maintained and bountifully stocked with chess men and checkers, The American Mercury and perhaps some other magazines of no concern.

3. Education:

It has been our intention to bring before the students, in a lecture program distinguished men on subjects of informal and general medical interest. We have endeavored in the last two years by thoughtful choice of speakers, careful selection of day and time and judicious advertising to build up toward our lectures an enthusiastic esprit de corps. The results have, we believe, repaid the efforts. Besides the reception, our program has been as follows:

1. George B. Magrath, Medical Examiner, Suffolk County. "Some Medical Experiences". Attendance 320.

2. Motion Pictures on: Scarlet Fever Prevention, Small Pox Prevention, Periodic Health Examination. Professor Milton Roseneau, M.D. Attendance 200.

3. Morton Prince, M.D. "Principles and Practice of Psychotherapy". Attendance 300.

4. Alfred Worcester, M.D. "Sex Problems". Attendance 350.

Talks Well Attended

A total of five talks to date has been given before approximately 1470 students, an average attendance of 294 per meeting. Whereas social service and cooperation with the worthy charitable and philanthropic organizations of the city is a praiseworthy endeavor of the Phillips Brooks House Association, and while it has often been energetically fostered at the Medical School, the Committee has invariably failed to develop it. As early as 1914, a year after the founding of the Medical School Society, the Chairman writes in his annual report: "Notwithstanding our disappointment here this year, we feel that this detachment of social service should not be abandoned." In 1917 we read "Later reports from this work (social service), indicate a falling off of interest as the school work increased. It should be noted that the medical curriculum differs from others in the University in providing during the later years much attention to the medical care of the sick among the poorer classes." Again in 1918 the Secretary states, "The plan followed the last two years of giving men interested in social service opportunity to work in groups has not been adhered to this year. In spite of good work on the part of all, it was found that as the pressure of school work increased, and because of the exacting nature of the follow-up work, this form of social service was not adapted to the conditions existing." And so we go from year to year without any real evidence of any real service having been negotiated. The reason is, we believe, that the nature of medical work and the great limitation of extra time forbids any participation in outside activity. As a matter of fact if the time were available, the upperclassmen would undoubtedly devote much of it in knowing and learning to serve better his own particular patients. Medical students have their greatest opportunity for social service in their everyday contacts with suffering humanity in the hospitals of this vicinity. They have no need of seeking out social service; it is right here at their feet--if they have half a heart they can not turn away.

Students in the Medical School contributed $267.87 to the work of the Society this year