Harvard Medical School (HMS) is creating a major new endowment to help attract and retain gifted teachers in an institution often dominated by research.

HMS, along with the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), recently announced that it would create an endowment to enable medical school professors to spend more time teaching. The endowments--$10 million at HMS, $5 million at UCSF--will fund academies of medical educators within the two schools.

The Academy initiative is the brainchild of Dr. Daniel H. Lowenstein, dean of medical education at HMS. Formerly stationed at UCSF, Lowenstein convinced both schools to pursue the project.

At HMS, the new Academy will be comprised of 200 to 300 of the most gifted teachers on staff. Whereas most medical school professors are not paid for their teaching, the endowment will allow HMS to partially compensate its best teachers.

The Academy's director will also advocate for members' promotions and will encourage new teaching methods and programs.

The initiative seeks not only to address the problem of attracting great professors but, more fundamentally, to renovate the structure of medical schools.

Unlike research, clinical and administrative work, teaching has traditionally not been a paid activity. In the past, teaching doctors have earned their living elsewhere--doubling teaching with clinical work and research.

In recent years, the rigorous demand for research in academia and the advent of managed care has put the medical school structure to the test. Accountability for actual clinical and research work as well as the expected level of productivity has increased in the profession.