Dissension at the Medical School
WITH a front-page story in its issue of April 8 The Dartmouth brought out into the open a dispute that had been boiling within the faculty of the Dartmouth Medical School for the past two years "ELEVEN PROFESSORS QUIT POSTS IN MED SCHOOL CONTRO- VERSY" the headline stated, and from that starting point the story quickly spread to the metropolitan press and the wire services.
Some newspaper stories depicted the Medical School faculty as battling over teaching versus research, but that was not the issue. All hands agreed that the Medical School needs both. The central issue was disagreement over the rate of expansion advocated by some departments within the School. Leading faculty members in the Departments of Cytology, Biochemistry, and Microbiology, from which the dissident, minority group was drawn, wanted to push ahead faster in expanding staff and facilities than their colleagues in five other departments thought best for maintaining institutional balance or for accomplishing the primary purpose of the School - the education of medical students.
"For an institution to change its shape and purpose, the reason must be of paramount importance," said Dr. S. Marsh Tenney '44, Professor of Physiology and Acting Dean of the Medical School. "Molecular biology was not so judged by the majority of the faculty."
At their meeting in Hanover last month the Dartmouth Trustees accepted two Medical School faculty resignations to go with the four accepted in January. It is expected that there will be others, and The Dartmouth's headline may become approximately correct. The six professors whose resignations have been accepted are Dr. Shinya Inoue, Ph.D., John LaPorte Given Professor of Cytology; Hidemi Sato, D.Sci., Assistant Professor of Cytology; Gordon W. Ellis, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Cytology; Robert E. Kane, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Cytology; R. Clinton Fuller, Ph.D., Profes- sor of Microbiology; and Andrew G. Szent Gyorgyi, M.D., Professor of Biophysics.
The resigning group, in a statement to the press, said: "We came to Dartmouth to fulfill a unique opportunity for education and research in the basic medical sciences. To those of us who are leaving it has become apparent that we cannot effectively accomplish this purpose here. We disagree with the way the medical school is being administered and the direction it is taking." Specifically, the resigning group wanted more personnel and space to develop the graduate program in molecular biology, for which the Departments of Cytology, Biochemistry, and Microbiology are chiefly responsible. Also at issue to a lesser degree was the Medical School's tenure policy, which was called "frozen."
In commenting on the position of the resigning professors, Dean Tenney emphasized the necessity of holding to a balance among all the departments of the School "in order to maintain our primary institutional purpose - medical education." Facilities for graduate students in the basic medical sciences are not as extensive as desired, he added, but "the Medical School is doing all it can to grow in a balanced and orderly way, and these things take time and money - you cannot do everything overnight. Too rapid growth leads to instability, and unilateral growth jeopardizes other existing programs."
As for tenure, Dr. Tenney pointed out that many of the faculty positions and programs at the Medical School are financed by outside grants. "It is the policy of the Medical School," he said, "not to award tenure to a man unless we have the money to insure his salary through retirement. This means endowment, not research money."
COMMENT on the Medical School's discord was also solicited from Prof. John W. Masland, Provost of the College. He recalled the tremendous growth in plant, faculty, and enrollment brought about by the "refounding" of the two year medical school at Dartmouth during the past decade. A large, full-time faculty has replaced the teaching staff that was almost entirely part-time; enrollment in the two-year medical course has doubled from 48 to 96; and more than 100 persons are now engaged in post doctoral work. He pointed out that two new departments, Medicine and Surgery, have recently been authorized by the Trustees and that the Department of Psychiatry has now come directly under the aegis of the Medical School.
"The conflict at the Medical School provides no basis whatever," he said, "for thinking that the School has failed in its purpose or that the quality of its medical education will be impaired. The men who are leaving are competent scientists, but it is significant that to the best of our knowledge they are going not to medical schools but to graduate departments or institutes of biology or related fields, or into research.
"It was unfortunate to have differences at the Medical School carried to the point where the faculty was finally forced into a choice between the medical program or the graduate program. This is a professional school and the graduate and medical programs go together. You also can't have one at the expense of the other. This is the view shared by the great majority of the Medical School faculty."
The Dartmouth Trustees, cognizant of the disagreement at the Medical School, last year asked the Trustees Planning Committee's subcommittee on the Medical School to review the objectives and experience on which the School was refounded. The report, submitted in June 1965, declared these objectives to be essentially unchanged, but foresaw not only an expansion of the School in all its facets but the development of the Medical School, the Hospital, and the Clinic complex as an increasingly important statewide medical center based on collaboration among its parts.
On the basis of the report, the Trustees last October unanimously adopted the following resolutions:
I. PURPOSE: It is recognized that both the basic academic responsibilities and the opportunities for the refounded two-year medical school are the same as those of other distinguished medical schools - the existent differences being more of degree than of kind. The primary purpose of the Dartmouth Medical School is the education of medical students, but with full recognition that this purpose can be accomplished only in an environment which provides optimum opportunity for scholarly endeavor, including the accumulation and advancement of knowledge through research and other essential educational activities, including (a) graduate education leading to the Ph.D. degree, (b) postgraduate medical training, (c) post-Ph.D. and post-M.D. training in research, and (d) post-sophomore medical student training in research....
II. FUTURE EXPANSION: The Trus- tees accept the principle that the Medical School is a dynamic organization which will require an orderly expansion of its student body, faculty, and facilities. All specific proposals for future expansion will be subject to the approval of the Trustees in order to assure that expansion is undertaken only as financial and other practical considerations permit.
