TEACHERS IN THE PRECLINICAL SCIENCES

To the Editor:— The increasing difficulty of attracting able young men and women into the field of preclinical science teaching and research has become a matter of grave concern to many medical educators. Several factors have contributed to producing this state of affairs. The interruption of graduate training by the war, which will quite possibly be continued by some form of compulsory military service during the postwar years, is one cause of the present shortage of potential preclinical teachers, but it is not the most important one. To an even greater extent the reluctance of outstanding young people to enter this field is due to the inadequate salaries which are paid basic science teachers in the majority of our medical schools. There is no lack of able young men and women who are, or who could be, interested in preclinical teaching and research as a career. It is a rare