Medicine: Capsules, Feb. 25, 1957

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¶Congress was too generous last year with the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, said Secretary Marion B. Folsom. It appropriated $184 million for research by the National Institutes of Health (compared with $98.5 million for fiscal '56), and the institutes have not been able to spend it. Reason: there are not enough qualified medical researchers and technicians free to go to work on new projects, either in the institutes themselves or in other research centers which they support with grants.

¶ To become a practicing physician in the U.S., an aspirant must spend four years in college, four more in medical school, at least a year in hospital internship (two more to be considered well-qualified by his professional colleagues) and may have to put in two years in the armed forces. He is likely to be 30 years old before he finishes his formal training. This, Johns Hopkins University's Vice President W. Barry Wood Jr. told an A.M.A. conference on medical education, is too much. Said he: "The relative number of students applying for admission to medical schools as compared to those applying for training in other professions has been definitely on the decrease." So the Johns Hopkins faculty is considering cutting two years from the eight now required for premedical and medical education by telescoping the college and medical-school years.