Med Faculty Approves Joint Harvard-M.I.T. Health Care School

The Faculty of Medicine overwhelmingly approved Friday a proposal to establish a joint Harvard-M.I.T. School of Health Sciences and Technology.

The planned teaching and research programs at the school would combine health care and medicine with physical, social, and behavioral sciences-disciplines which have not traditionally been included in medical education.

"If medicine is going to solve the modern problems of health care and environmental control, it will need a lot of input from the physical, social, and behavioral sciences that it's just not getting today," Robert H. Ebert, dean of the Medical School, said yesterday.

The formal establishment of the school awaits the approval of the M.I.T. faculty and acceptance by the governing bodies of both universities. In addition, $50 million will have to be raised to finance the school's endowment and capital construction costs.

The proposed school is the result of extensive planning efforts carried out over the past three years by large numbers of faculty and administrators from both Harvard and M.I.T.

The announced goals of the school are:

to prepare physicians and medical investigators who are thoroughly trained in the physico-chemical, engineering, mathematical, and management sciences.

to give students majoring in physico-chemical and engineering sciences a strong background in biophysics and biomedical engineering.

to expand opportunities for all students-medical and non-medical-to study the application of the social, behavioral, and management sciences to health care.

Heart Attacks

Ebert cited heart attacks as an example of a health problem that can be solved only by combining medical and physical sciences. He said that doctors need some of the training normally restricted to engineers to fully understand the role of blood flow and fluid turbulance in causing heart attacks.

He also said that a modern coronary care unit depends heavily on electronic monitering equipment normally outside the training of physicians.

A joint planning group headed by Irving M. London, visiting professor of Medicine at Harvard and professor of Biology at M.I.T., is currently working out the final program for the school.

Developments

Latest plans call for the school to have physical facilities at several sites-at M.I.T. Harvard College the Med School, and in Harvard's teaching hospitals. These would be developed over the next five years.

Between 155 and 200 graduate students will be enrolled per year. About half would pursue Master's and Ph.D. degree programs in physical sciences and engineering as they relate to biology and medical sciences. Others would pursue medical degrees in the life sciences or Ph.D.'s in social sciences as they relate to health care-for instance the economies of health care.

Combined Degrees

The plan would encourage combined degree programs sponsored jointly by the appropriate departments of either university and by the new school.

"A student pursuing a graduate education in economics could take courses in human biology and in the economic problems of health care. We desperately need economists concerned with the management aspects of the U.S.'s $64 billion health care system."

The school will be staffed by about 100 faculty members-some full-time and others part-time-from existing faculties.

Research programs will stress such problems as environmental health, sensory aids for the blind, artificial organs, and the application of computers and modern management techniques to the design of health care programs.