Med School Faculty Liberalizes Curriculum for First Two Years

The curriculum for the first two years of Medical School was radically liberalized yesterday by an overwhelming majority of the Faculty of Medicine.

The reform, effective this fall, will greatly reduce the time for a required "core curriculum," allowing some electives in the first year, and a full term of electives in the second year.

"This major curriculum reform will break the lock-step academic program which has hampered medical education for over 50 years," Dr. Robert H. Ebert, Dean of the Medical School, said yesterday.

Flexibility

The new plan allows a great deal of flexibility to accommodate students with varied preparations and medical interests. The students, who now cannot take electives until the last term of their fourth year, will be able to specialize earlier. They will also be able to take courses in the behavioral sciences at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and at M.I.T.

"Electives will be the major vehicle for students to go in their own direction. The core curriculum is the vehicle by which we will continue to provide the understanding of the language of medicine which every doctor must have," Dean Ebert said.

Students will also spend more time actually in the hospitals under the new program, said Dr. Alexander Leaf, Jackson Professor of Clinical Medicine at Harvard. Leaf is chairman of the Ad Hoc Curriculum Subcommittee which recommended the general outline of the plan to the Faculty in October, 1966.

Student Opinion

"Throughout the planning, we have sought the opinions of the students, and there is widespread student approval of the revisions," Leaf said.

But at the heavily attended Faculty meeting yesterday, the Subcommittee's recommendations drew criticism from those who called the reforms either too liberal, or not liberal enough. Dean Ebert, in reply to complaints that there would not be enough time to teach the traditionally required subjects, said, "The Departments are being challenged to provide stimulating electives for those who want to study any field in more detail."

Curriculum reforms for the last two years at the Medical School, which are much less controversial than the changes approved yesterday, are expected to come to a vote this spring, a Faculty spokesman said last night. The third year would be devoted mainly to work in the hospitals. In the fourth year, students would be free to elect their entire program.