A. For Travis Hill， it was an offer too good to refuse. Last year when the 30-year-oldneuroscientist was admitted to a new program at NYU School of Medicine that wouldallow him to complete medical school in only three years and guarantee him a spot inits neurosurgery residency， he seized it. Not only would Hill save about $70，000——thecost of tuition and living expenses for the fourth year of medical school——he wouldalso shave a year offthe training that will consume the next decade of his life.
B. The chance to finish medical school early is attracting increased attention fromstudents burdened with six-figure education loans: The median debt for medicalschool graduates in 2013 was $175，000， according to the Association of AmericanMedical Colleges. This year， the combined cost of tuition and fees for a first-yearmedical student range from just over $12，000 to more than $82，000.
C.Some medical school administrators and policymakers see three-year programs asa way to produce physicians， particularly primary-care doctors， faster as the newhealth-care law allows millions of previously uninsured patients into the medical system.Enormous student loans are cited as one reason some newly minted doctors chooseprofitable specialties such as radiology （放射学） or dermatology （皮肤病学 ） ，which pay twice as much as pediatrics （小儿科 ） or family medicine.
D.But debt and the shortage of primary-care doctors are not the only factors fuelinginterest in accelerated programs. Some influential experts are raising questions aboutthe length of medical school in part because much of the fourth year is devoted toelectives and applying for a residency， a process that typically takes months. （Similarquestions are being raised about the third year of law school.）
E.In a paper published in a journal of the American Medical Association in 2012，University of Pennsylvania Vice Provost Ezekiel Emanuel and Stanford economistVictor Fuchs proposed that a year of medical school could be eliminated "withoutadversely affecting academic performance". The overall time it takes to trainphysicians， they wrote， is an example of waste in medical education and could beshortened without affecting patient care or eroding clinical skills; students could beassessed on "core competencies rather than on time served."
F.So far， fewer than a dozen of the nation"s 124 medical schools are offering oractively considering three-year programs， which typically involve the elimination ofelectives， attendance at summer classes and the temporary guarantee of a residencyoffered because three-year graduates might be at a disadvantage compared with otherapplicants.
G.NYU launched its program in September with Hill and 15 other students chosen froma pool of 50 applicants——nearly a third of the medical school"s 160-member class.
Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock graduated its first three-year class in 2013; its nine students are training in family medicine. Fifteen morestudents started this fall. In September， Columbia University"s College of Physiciansand Surgeons launched a "fast track MD" for candidates who already hold doctoratesin biology; there were 40 applicants for four quotas.
H.Despite the growing popularity of such programs， critics question the wisdom ofjettisoning （抛弃，投掷 ） the fourth year of medical school， which they say playsa crucial role in preparing doctors for residency and subsequent practice. Some notethat the three-year track was offered by a few dozen medical schools in the late 1970sbut subsequently abandoned， largely because of student burnout from trying to jamtoo much into three years.
I.Supporters of the three-year option say that contemporary medical school programsare different from 1970s curricula， which relied more heavily on rote memorization，and that the new programs have been designed to minimize burnout.
J."This has been tried before， and it was a miserable failure，" said Stanley Goldfarb，associate dean for curriculum at the University of Pennsylvania"s Perelman School ofMedicine， who c