Changing Medical School Curricula

To the Editor.—  Two deans of medical schools complained about my interpretation of the data I presented (229:22, 1974). Dean Votaw (229:1579, 1974) chose to ignore the fact that 42 respondees among those who were generally "reasonably well satisfied" with student preparation still held that there had been a deterioration in preclinical science instruction. Actually, the total number of respondents reporting a deterioration was 64, not 22 as he implied. His remark that "superficial surveys such as this don't help" is inappropriate, since I said in my original letter in reporting the data that "it is to be hoped that many more medical schools will examine the quality of their product more carefully than they have." It would have been more helpful if Dean Votaw had presented some actual data rather than misleading statements about the data I presented.Dean Bloomfield's remarks, in the same issue, also misrepresented the data.