Interestingly enough, one often hears the opposite contention. This theory rests on the idea that medical schools have recently become "enlightened" and that in this new area science majors are viewed with some disdain as lacking the breadth, warmth, and empathy of humanities concentrators.

In the first place, new medicines and methods of treatment require a high degree of scientific sophistication on the part of their users. One does not, of course, have to have majored in the sciences to have the necessary grasp of them.

But if a non-science concentrator who has taken the minimum of science requirements has a lacklustre record, sprinkled with a D or two, and a poor scientific Medical Aptitude Test score, he can hardly expect a school to have confidence in his ability to do science. Students in these straits should not be surprised by rejection notices.

This unhappy prognosis, however, might well be changed by a simple dose of preventative medicine: take more science--it will kill you or cure you.

Regarding less marginal non-science majors, suffice it to say that not a single non-science major at Harvard whose grades in science were on a C level, with evidence that he could do quantitative work on the level of Math 1 and Physics 1, failed to be offered a place in medical school last year.

Furthermore, concerning any statistics about the relative success of science and non-science majors, each case is scrutinized so exhaustively on its own merits that these figures have no effect on any individual decisions.

In short, the rumor that medical schools either downgrade non-science majors or are overawed by "Renaissance men" is absolutely false.

Caveat Wonk?

Comments often float around to the effect that "wonks" or "grinds" will "get theirs" when medical school application time rolls around.

Exactly what the term "wonk" signifies, of course varies with who uses the word; it can denote anything from all those who got a better grade on the last hour exam than the speaker to a bonafide anal compulsive bookworm. Generally speaking, the term applies to a sort of drab toiler of limited cosmic vision, whose main concern in life is his academic grade average.

It must be remembered that medical schools are faced with a large number of superior people. If all work and no play really does foster an aphasic dullness, students might do well to ponder the words of one medical school dean who remarked, "The unexciting person will definitely have a more difficult time getting admitted in the coming years." On the other hand, for those students at the other polar extreme, there is very little play in medical school. The moral, Neither an ant nor a grasshopper be.

Shrink Shy?

Another much circulated tip is aimed at those interested in psychiatry. Such students, the word is, should not evince any interest in the subject within earshot of medical school walls because schools shy away from their kind on the general principle that "it takes one to know one." What to tell them, this tale continues, is that you are unsure but lean towards "research."

When asked about this rumor, most medical school officials asserted that this was not true at their particular institution, but several agreed that there was some substance to this claim of discrimination.,

There is a strange dualistic attitude psychiatry and psychiatrists on the part of certain persons, some M.D.'s included, which is reminiscent of the medieval outlook on Church and clergy. At no time was anticlericalism so rampant as in the Age of Faith. Analagously, some physicians have the greatest respect for psychiatry and would not hesitate to refer patients to psychiatrists; yet in their hearts they view psychiatrists with a certain mistrust and professional disdain.