The number of students obtaining medical excuses from exams has risen for four years, but the rise cannot be attributed to changes in University Health Service (UHS) procedure for issuing excuses, Dr. Sholem Postel, acting director of UHS, said yesterday.

Postel said that increased pressures may be responsible because students are "more hesitant to take an exam when they are not feeling completely up to par."

Last year students used more than two-and-a-half times as many medical excuses to postpone their upcoming exams than did students four years ago. Altogether, they missed 530 more exams than did students in 1972-73.

The rise in students illnesses over the years prompted a Faculty Council review of the current exam make-up policy last September, but the council concluded that the exam policy should remain the same.

Postel could not predict how many students would obtain excuses this year. He said," We don't keep day by day records of excuses. We add them up at the end."