Medicine: Forty Years Back?

The U.S. Army has its own plan for educating medical students. The American Association of Medical Colleges does not like that plan a bit. Last week, meeting in Chicago, they said so, in plain terms. The Army proposes only 15 months of super-condensed premedical study before shoving students into medical schools. At present over 98% of U.S. medical students have had at least three years of college preparation. The Army’s “return to the standards of premedical education of 40 years ago,” the A.A.M.C. charged, will produce second-rate doctors and “a lowering of the quality of medical care for the armed forces and the civilian population of the future.”