State Med School Plan Faces Mounting Protest

Objections to the Massachusetts Medical and Dental School Commission's recent proposals for indirect Sense subsidies to New England medical and dental schools mounted yesterday.

In a lone dissenting report, one of the Commission's 15 members, Dr. Davis Hurwitz '25, clinical associate at the Medical School, challenged the constitutionality of the aid plan. According to Hurwitz, the Commission's proposals violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the so-called "anti-aid provision" of the State constitution, which expressly forbids all direct State assistance to private educational institutions.

Meanwhile, Dr. Roy O. Greep, Dean of the Dental School, joined Medical School Dean George P. Berry in expressing doubt that their respective schools could accept the State plan in its present form.

The State's proposals are based upon the assumption that participating institutions will increase their enrollments to provide training opportunities for an additional 50 medical and 30 dental students each year from Massachusetts alone. Both Greep and Berry agree that the Medical and Dental Schools would find it difficult to undertake such expansion under present conditions.

Strain on Facilities

"We've been operating at maximum capacity for years, anyway," Greep explained. Since medical and dental students in the University take exactly the same courses for the first two years, a great strain is already thrown upon Medical School facilities, he pointed out.

"Even for five more men in each class, we'd probably have to spend several million dollars just to provide for them," he said.

In his minority Commission report, Hurwitz denounced as a "circumvention" the proposed creation of a New England Higher Education Board to act as a financial intermediary between the State and the private medical and dental schools.

"Even if this plan could be squeezed through a legal loophole, it would still violate the concept of excluding State funds from the support of private educational institutions," Hurwitz wrote.