Dentistry Panel Suggests Reforms

The committee of experts convened by President Pusey has recommended that Harvard continue its program of dental education.

The recommended changes were far less drastic than Dr. Robert H. Ebert, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, has hinted they might be earlier this semester.

After its one meeting Thursday, the committee recommended keeping both graduate and post-graduate dental programs with three changes in the graduate program:

* Separating admissions to the School of Dental Medicine from admissions to the Medical School. Students for these schools are now selected by one admissions committee--for every dental student admitted, one less medical student can be accepted. This step will not only eliminate the competition of dental students for medical school places, Pusey announced, but will enable the Dental School to increase the size of its classes.

* Changes in the curriculum of the dental students in his first two (pre-clinical) years, giving a more active role to members of the teaching staff of the Dental School. First and second year curriculum for dental students is now almost identical to that of Medical School students.

* Moving the teaching done in the third and fourth years into hospital settings. It is now done in a clinic of the Dental School.

In a Crimson interview in October, Ebert said the committee would "probably propose placing greater emphasis on advanced training," and he said that elimination of all but specialists' training was a "possibility."

The committee not only did not do away with graduate education in dentistry, but--as its recommendations are outlined by Pusey--did not even deal with specialists' training.

The School of Dental Medicine, the oldest university dental school in the country, is Harvard's smallest graduate school with 16 students admitted annually.

Members of the committee who reported to Pusey included a college president, a formr university president, two medical school deans, a former medical school dean, the director of the National Institute of Dental Research, and three Harvard doctors.