This absence of excessive competition has helped to create a sense of casualness among the Yale students which many observers find lacking in the exam-ridden, tense and intense Harvard environment. The Yale attitude may be augmented next fall with the completion of the Harkness Memorial Hall, which will have accommodations for 300 students, including also a sundeck, small gymnasium, and lounges and club-rooms, Hitherto many Yale students, like Harvard men at present, have been forced to live in rooming houses because of inadequate dormitories.
A third respect in which the "Yale Plan" is unique is the lack of fixed course requirements. Students who can demonstrate competence in the field of knowledge covered by a course are encouraged to accept special assignments, such as participation in instruction or research in the field, or ore excused from attendance and given additional time for elective work.
Electives emphasized
Finally, the "Yale Plan" is unique in its emphasis on elective courses. "It has been a basic policy in this programs," Dean Lippard has said, "that the student should not be under such pressure to attend required exercises from eight to five daily for four years that he has no time for pursuit of special interests." The Medical School has therefore included fewer than the usual scheduled hours in the curriculum. The student may choose to attend several electives or none, and he receives no credit. The brilliant student may take as many as he is interested in, and the man who learns slowly may spend additional study in the basic courses.
While many of the elective courses are highly specialized, Dean Lippard points out that intimate contact with a faculty member whose investigative interests have carried him into a limited field can be an exciting experience for a student; "and we believe," he says, "that he should be excited as well as taught."
But despite the unorthodox features of the "Yale Plan," Dean Lippard insists that "there is nothing unique or ingenious about it. The material covered is in most respects similar to that in other American medical schools, and the methods of instruction are those which have been considered satisfactory in fields of graduate study other than medicine for centuries."
Harvard balanced
If the essential emphasis of the Yale Plan is stimulating of students' incentive to learn, coupled with an unusual degree of freedom to pursue their interests, Harvard may be said to emphasize the development of prospective doctors as creative, liberally educated men capable, in Dean Berry's words, of "curing the patient and not just treating the disease."
To achieve this aim, Harvard places strong emphasis on the enormous and varied hospital facilities at its command. As at Yale, the first two years of the student's program are concerned chiefly with pre-clinical training in such subjects as anatomy, pharmacology, and physiology, while the last two are devoted to the actual care of patients in hospitals. Pre-clinical training is relatively independent of the environment in which, it is undertaken, but clinical training requires well-equipped hospitals.
Harvard is especially fortunate in being located in Boston, since the city has long been noted for a strong tradition of medical excellence and outstanding hospital facilities. The Medical School shares in the use of 14 of these hospitals, which have a total bed-capacity of 4053, 922 of which are available for teaching purposes. Four hospitals--the Massachusetts General, Peter Bent Brigham, Children's, and Boston Lying In--are affiliated exclusively with Harvard. They have a total bed-capacity of 1702, 1098 of which are always available for teaching.
It would be hard to overemphasize the importance to the teaching program of Harvard's 257 full-time and 624 part-time instructors. The latter, in particular, provide the student with a working knowledge of the economic, social, and personal problems of patients. The part-time instructor, moreover, is more plentiful in large cities.
Perhaps the most unique feature of Harvard's medical program is the stimulating rivalry between the hospitals. Since Harvard students apply to take their clinical training at the hospital of their choice, the hospitals compete to attract outstanding students with outstanding doctors.
Yale facilities
It would be a misconception, however, to assume that merely because New Haven is smaller than Boston that the medical facilities open to Yale are automatically inferior to those of Harvard. Grace-New Haven Community Hospital,