A group of eight Soviet physicians visited the Medical School yesterday on the first leg of a national tour sponsored by the Citizens Exchange Corps, a New York based organization, and the University of Minnesota.

The soviet team, which includes three surgeons, a pharmacologist, a radiologist, a therapist, and a professor of social hygiene, is headed by Alexei G. Safonov, the Soviet Union's deputy minister of Public Health.

The Soviet physicians' visit to the United States was organized after a similar visit by nine American doctors to the Soviet Union in late May and early June.

Ebert

Early yesterday morning the Soviet team participated in a symposium on the state health care in the United States, headed by Robert H. Ebert, dean of the Medical School, and David H. Rutstein, a professor of Medicine.

The symposium was followed by a morning of meetings in the Medical Area, and an afternoon of tours of medical-facilities in the Boston area.

Yesterday evening, at a reception for the Soviet doctors at the Museum of Science, Safonov said Harvard appeared to be "very strong in its traditions." He said he knows that Harvard University, and specifically the Medical School, "plays a leading role in American medicine."

The Soviet minister also said that this visit has shown that the problems of health care are "mutual problems." He said, "We have to find new ways to raise the level of medical knowledge among physicians in the years after they receive their medical degrees.

In response to a question, Safonov declined to discuss the Soviet Union's refusal to allow physicist and Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov to leave the country for the Nobel Prize award-giving ceremonies.

Safonov said when the American physicans visited the Soviet Union, he didn't ask them questions like, "Why do you shoot your presidents?" He said it is improper to ask him to discuss Soviet internal affairs.

Safonov's remarks were translated by an official of the Citizens Exchange Corps. Officials of the Soviet Embassy in Washington were present at all the events yesterday.