In an effort to exchange ideas about medical education between the United States and Eastern Europe, Harvard Medical School students have been hosting some of their Czechoslovakian and Soviet counterparts this past week.

Ten Czech medical students and two of their professors from Charles University in Prague were visiting Harvard until today. On Friday, 34 Soviet students from the Second Moscow Pirogov Medical School arrived with two faculty members. While this is the third year that Soviet students have come to Harvard, it is the first visit by the Czechs.

Leon Eisenberg, a professor of psychiatry at the Medical School who is helping to coordinate the Czechs' visit, said that the interest of Medical School students Curtis Page and Nathaniel Hupert '87-'88 sparked the program.

Hupert said that he had been inspired by a letter the Czech students sent the Medical School. "They basically said. 'We need help. We've been stagnant for forty years,'" Hupert said.

It was difficult to get the program funded, since Czechoslovakia has no convertible currency or foreign exchange, Eisenberg said. Eventually, the Medical School students collected enough money, thanks in large part to a grant from a Medical School foundation that supports international diplomacy through medicine, he said.

Eisenberg said the students were still attempting to raise funds for a reciprocal visit to Prague.

Twenty-two-year-old Jan Vaculik, one of the Czech students, said he was impressed by the Medical School's tutorials, a central part of the school's "New Pathway" curriculum.

"The discussion there is very informal, which allows students to talk freely. They don't have to worry about making mistakes in front of their teachers," Vaculik said.

Vaculik said he was equally impressed with the technology he saw at the Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Hospital. "One of our professors said that Beth Israel Hospital contains as much technology as the whole city of Prague," he said.

Vaculik said he did not know exactly how the visit would affect medical education in Czechoslovakia, but he said "it will definitely have an influence on our system."

The Soviet Visit

The Soviet students arrived on Friday as part of a separate program intended to "facilitate communication between our two nations under the umbrella of medicine," said the program's co-chair Kathy Glatter, a Medical School student.

The Soviets' school paid for their airfare, but the Harvard program must pay the rest of their costs, because the ruble is a nonconvertible currency.

One of the new ideas Glatter and her co-chair, Heidi Fischer, had for this year's visit was to include Boston-area high school students. Glatter said that booklets and a video highlighting these teenagers' health concerns were given to the Soviet students, who will do the same with some teens in their country.

The Soviets were supposed to meet with Surgeon General Antonia Novello in Washington but were not able to because of a flight delay, Glatter said.

Twenty-eight Medical School students will complete the exchange, when they visit Moscow between March 31 and April 9