The Hispanic Center of Excellence, which is located on the campus of the Albert Einstein Medical Center in the Bronx, is just one of the few federally funded programs in the country charged with producing new Hispanic physicians. Recently, the Office of Management and Budget, a federal department that assists President Bush in overseeing the preparation of the federal budget, told the staff at the Center of Excellence that they would not receive the three years of funding that they had been promised because the services they offered were considered "ineffective." However, Hal Strelnick, the center's director and 25-year veteran of the college, believes that the department's decision was wrong. He says that the five-year-old center, which supports about 800 students each year, successfully achieved 17 of its 18 stated objectives for the year. The problem, he says, is that Washington bureaucrats don't understand the specifics of rigorously training students--many of whom are the first in their families to go to college--for a life in the medical field. This article reports on Congress' decisions to erase fundings for dozens of minority focused medical training centers like the Hispanic Center of Excellence, leaving them scrambling to stay afloat.