A new federal law may require the Harvard Medical School to reserve positions for students who have completed two years in a foreign medical school and passed the first part of a national exam.

The Medical School will have to abide by the law, passed in late September, in order to retain a $1000 federal subsidy for each medical student, F. Sargent Cheever, director of admissions at the medical school said yesterday.

The Department of Health, Education and Welfare is currently drafting the working regulations of the new ruling, which applied to the 106 medical schools in the United States. Cheever claimed that the wording of the Congressional bill is so ambiguous that it is impossible to understand exactly what it will require.

"We're all sitting on our hands to a certain extent while we wait for the regulations to be published," he said.

Whatever the new regulations, the HEW policy will probably not flood Harvard with students, Dr. Cheever said. Of the 6000 who annually choose to attend medical school abroad, he estimated that 1000 will apply for transfer. The students will then be distributed in groups of about ten to each of the American schools.

While Cheever explained that "it would not kill the institution" to sacrifice national funding, the grant is a substantial asset and "we'll have to look at what they want," he said.

After HEW hands down a ruling, the schools will have up to 60 days to comment on the policy.