Dominated by the Army and Navy even more than Harvard College, the Harvard Medical School is still carrying on, now fulfilling an important function in training service doctors and performing wartime scientific research. Severe staff losses have hindered this instruction and research, however.

Dean C. Sidney Burwell announced Wednesday that 239 members of the teaching staff had departed for military or government service during the war, many of them for overseas duty. Burwell himself serves as chairman of a subcommittee on the procurement of medical officers and research workers.

Of those who have left, 209 are with the Army, 70 with the Navy, four in unspecified government service three in the U. S. Public Health Service, one in the RCAF, one as consultant to the Secretary of War, and one in the British Emergency Medical Service. An additional 40 staff members are working under government contracts at the Medical School or in associated hospitals.

Despite these staff losses, Dean Burwell said, the Med School is giving instruction under an accelerated program to its regular peacetime complement of about 500 students. Most of these students now wear khaki or navy blue and will be commissioned and put on active duty upon graduation.

As a center of scientific research, the Med School is carrying on a large number of wartime research projects for the government. Dean Burwell reported.