Score on Schools

The American Medical Association, whose censors have made admission to U. S. medical schools exceedingly difficult and graduation from foreign medical schools virtually useless, last week set up a vigorous complaint against U. S. medical schools which are undermining its program for a highly exclusive profession. The A. M. A.'s chief means of forcing medical schools to abide by its high-minded policies is to exclude them from its list of "Approved Medical Schools."

Dropped this autumn for that reason was University of West Virginia's medical school at Morgantown. Dropped last year and again blacklisted this year were the medical schools of University of Georgia at Augusta and of University of Mississippi at University.

All replied by shuffling administrative officers. Dean Philip Lee Mull, 63, of Mississippi, gave up his job to Dr. Billy Sylvester Guyton, 51, University of Virginia graduate, who became acting dean. Dr. John Nathan Simpson, 66, who founded West Virginia's medical school in 1902 and has been dean ever since, turned his office over to Dr. Edward Jerald Van Liere, 39, who reluctantly became acting dean. Georgia promoted Anatomist George Lombard Kelly, 45, from vice dean to full dean.

Eight other schools change deans this autumn. At Yale, intramural policies forced out Dr. Milton Charles Winternitz, 50, brought in Dr. Stanhope Bayne-Jones, 47. Wisconsin's new dean, Dr. William Shainline ("Dr. Billy") Middleton, 45, sharpens students' wits by passing a brown derby from dullard to dullard throughout the term, finally presents it to his class as a memorial to their intelligence.

For 30 years the A. M. A., through a Council on Medical Education & Hospitals, has fought for and succeeded in improving the average quality of doctors graduated from U. S. and Canadian medical schools. In 1905 there were 160 medical schools in the U. S., which graduated 5,606 doctors that year. This year there are only 74 which the A. M. A. countenances. Last June they disgorged 5,101 young doctors upon the nation.

A notable although incalculable number of last June's medical graduates are not going to make good doctors, the A. M. A.'s Council on Medical Education & Hospitals indicated last week. Their most general failing is their lack of experience in midwifery. Either hospitals connected with medical schools lack sufficient maternity cases for practice or the mothers of the nation refuse to let medical students practice obstetrics on them. Scolded the A. M. A.:

"In recent years, financial stringency has caused some medical schools to rely more largely on the income from student fees, and larger numbers of students have been accepted for the sake of gaining additional revenue. Unfortunately, in most instances the teaching staff has not been correspondingly strengthened or the physical plant commensurately enlarged. In consequence it has been found that too often faculties are undermanned and laboratories overcrowded. A more serious feature of increasing enrollments is the failure to maintain high academic standards in the selection of students. Too many applicants with poor scholastic records have been accepted, with inevitable impairment of the efficiency of the school."

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