Med School Revolution

When the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine was opened in 1893, a high-school graduate could get right into medical college and expect to hang out his shingle in about four years. "The Hopkins," as Baltimoreans call it, changed all that. It demanded a college degree, then four years of medical study. This basic plan, with some variations, has been adopted by virtually all U.S. medical schools. With at least a year's internship added, it has come to mean at least nine, perhaps eleven years, between high school and the practice of medicine.

After vague rumblings of possible changes at Johns Hopkins, details of a radical new plan were reported last week. As soon as it can raise enough funds for additional faculty and necessary new buildings, the university proposes to: P:Admit students to the school of medicine after only two years of undergraduate work, during which time they need take no premedical courses except elementary biology and chemistry. P: In the first year of medical school, combine premedical subjects with regular college subjects (including the humanities), the latter to be taken at the Johns Hopkins liberal arts campus. P:1ntroduce anatomy (now almost universally taught in first-year med courses) in the second year, along with biochemistry, physiology and medical psychology. Required concurrently: anthropology and social psychology. The third year would be similar but more advanced; at its end, students would get a B.A. P: Limit the fourth year to medicine, then add a fifth year, in which the student would simultaneously serve a rotating internship (i.e., switching from one type of hospital service to another).

After these seven crowded years -- there would be 40 weeks in each academic year instead of the present 32 -- additional internships or residencies, though desirable, would be optional. Upshot of the plan: after graduation from high school at the U.S. average age of 18, the aspiring M.D. would be ready for practice at 25, cutting two years from medical education. More important, the plan's sponsors hope, he would still feel free to go into research in his most imaginative and productive years.

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