INCREASED SCIENTIFIC MEDICAL STUDY URGED

There is a serious shortage of young men in the medical sciences today in the United States, and the laboratory branches of medicine will suffer unless a change takes place in the current of young men taking up medical careers, according to Dean David L. Edsall of the Medical School, whose annual report was made public yesterday.

Dean Edsall states that the clinical branches of medicine are getting such a large proportion of the younger men in the profession, that in the laboratory branches "there is really a disturbing paucity of capable and well-trained instructors, and even of Seniors," and he fears that if things go on as at present the laboratory branches "will suffer seriously in both their instructional and investigative activities, and perhaps go through a period of decided deterioration."

To remedy this situation, Dean Edsall reports that the Medical School Faculty have recently decided to offer the degree of Doctor of Medical Sciences, hoping that men who are interested in the scientific side of medicine will try for this degree. He also urges that the colleges, and especially college instructors, shall point out to students the possibilities of service to science which are to be found in the field of medicine.

Dean Edsall writes also of the growing importance of graduate medical work in the United States, stating that last year 614 men received graduate instruction at the Medical School, most of them being either local practitioners spending part of their time in study or else doctors coming from a distance to spend a limited time at the school.