Cardozo and Fingold also point to the need for other institutional changes, particularly on the departmental level.

Because faculty members answer to their department and department chair when it comes to research, salary and resources, emphasis on teaching needs to begin on that level, Cardozo said.

“Teaching has to be recognized not as an individual responsibility, but as a departmental responsibility...whereas right now, teaching is seen as an extra departmental activity,” he said.

Fingold wrote in her report that HMS should “‘level the playing field’ with regard to teaching stipends” and establish teaching as a means of professional advancement.

She also called for department chairs to enforce rules currently on the books that require junior faculty to teach at least 50 hours.

Some doctors-to-be at HMS proved themselves intimately aware of the pressures that drive down the supply of professors for their classes.

“It is almost a given that most physicians enjoy teaching and sharing knowledge,” HMS student James E. De La Torre said yesterday. “However, we are presently in a system of health care that rewards research as opposed to teaching. To this end, the ladder in academia is more quickly ascended if you run a lab and produce literature.”

Other students said though that they aren’t experiencing any ill effects of the trend—at least yet.

“I don’t think I feel the effects of it because they ultimately get people to teach,” said third-year medical student Will R. Polkinghorn, who added that in terms of his interactions with his classmates and faculty members, he felt he was getting his money’s worth.