Med Students Ask Faculty To Clarify Compromise

Representatives of the Medical School's third-year class have asked the school's faculty council to clarify a compromise it offered last Thursday in response to students' demands that a new mandatory concentration program be made optional.

In a meeting with students two days before the council met, Dr. Robert H. Ebert, dean of the Medical School, proposed the compromise. Under the faculty-approved version students would normally be expected to concentrate in one of 12 areas, but the faculty board of advisers could permit "varied levels of concentration" for students under "exceptional circumstances."

Flexibility

Before they accept the proposal many third-year students, whose class is the first to fall under the concentration requirement, want to know how flexibly the board will interpret the phrase, "exceptional circumstances."

Three student representatives presented the request in a letter sent Tuesday to Ebert and two officials of the school's faculty council, Judith N. Wasserheit, a third-year student and member of the school's student-faculty committee, said yesterday.

Standstill

Wasserheit said discussion of the issue is at a standstill this week because Ebert is away.

As of two weeks ago, three-fourths of the third-year class had agreed not to file required declarations of concentration.

Semi-Formal

Although Monday was the formal deadline for those plans, as well as course selections for next year, the school registrar's office will accept both plans later.

The concentration requirement specifies that students must spend at least four months of their last two years at the school in one field of medicine.