schools, notably Harvard, Tufts, and Boston University, had actually reduced the number of
students admitted from New England, recruiting instead from the increasing number of students applying from across the United States. Although, the Report admitted, “the region at present does enjoy a favorable physician-population ratio - 155.4 per 100,000 for New England as
compared with 118.4 for the United States,” it invoked the Surgeon General’s Report to emphasize that New England must do its share to help provide for the nation’s future needs: “Except for
the state of Vermont, we are not contributing our fair share.” On October 18, 1959 the NEBHE
adopted three resolutions declaring that Massachusetts and Connecticut should establish medical and dental schools; that New England states without publicly supported medical and dental
schools should create contractual arrangements with existing New England schools to admit more regionally-based students; and, that New England states without such schools establish financial aid for “qualified residents with limited financial resources” to attend those schools with which contractual arrangements had been established.46
The Commission’s findings generated a strong reaction. By February 1960, the AAMC
had received preliminary inquiries into starting a medical school from the University of
Massachusetts, the University of Connecticut, Brown University, and MIT. By October, it
acknowledged what it termed “serious” inquiries from Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Brown.
The outgoing Massachusetts governor, Foster Furcolo, a Democrat, publicly supported creating a state medical school.47 Also in 1960 he proposed a bill to expand Shattuck Hospital’s ambulatory care department and construct a four-year, 100-student medical school and research building in Boston. Furcolo estimated the total costs at $17 million, of which fourteen million would come from the current surplus in the state budget, and $3 million from federal grants. Interestingly,
Furcolo’s draft bill incorporated the same funding requests that would be made two years later: $100,000 for hiring a dean and other expenses associated with planning, and $14 million for
remodeling Shattuck Hospital and constructing the education and research building. The bill also called for a reconstitution of the University of Massachusetts Board of Trustees to better manage a medical school and hospital; henceforth the Board should include, besides the governor, “the
Commissioners of education, agriculture, public health, and mental health, the president of the
university (ex officio), and not more than 15 additional members to be appointed by the governor for seven-year terms of whom one is to be drawn from a list provided by the Mass. Medical Society.”48
Handwritten, private notes by the newly arrived University of Massachusetts President,
John Lederle taken during a meeting to discuss the matter convey the political complexities surrounding the question, still two years away from actual passage of the enabling bill: 18