Berry Suggests Using Resources To Increase Number of Doctors

American medical resources must be utilized to their fullest extent to overcome the present decline in prospective physicians, George Packer Berry, Dean of the Medical School, stated yesterday.

Dean Berry pointed out that Harvard's chief solution to this problem will be, as before, to provide the best-qualified teachers.

Harvard now suplies 15 per cent of the full-time medical instructors in the country, most of these coming from the Division of Medical Science. However, Berry explained that the Medical School enrollment is as large as it can be with present facilities, and the student body cannot be expanded without new facilities.

If the rate of population increase in the United States remains the same, 3,000 physicians yearly and about twenty-five new medical schools will be needed in the next fifteen years. A suggested remedy is increasing the number of cooperative plans under which students attend two years at a regular university and proceed to more advanced schools, like Harvard.

Professional assistants aid doctors today, and this tends to balance the small physician-population ratio, since the doctors can do more work. Quicker medical methods and better medicines make doctors' work more efficient.

At present, much of the money for medical research and expansion comes from the federal government. Further federal programs have been introduced to deal with the decline of medical students. If proposed legislation is passed, proposed construction projects costing about $400 million will be undertaken.

The construction would take about three years. About three-fifths of the cost would be charged to teaching, the rest to research.