December 16, 1990

"I'M worried about what I'm seeing," Eve Sokol, a social worker at University Hospital, said. "We're helping a whole group of people live sick ways of life. "There's so much anger in a hospital because patients expect to get better, and if they don't, they want more understanding. For legal or emotional reasons, doctors can't deal with those demands nor the consequences of high technology."

A SURGE in office construction is under way downtown amid concern that there are not enough tenants to go around. A $140 million convention center has just been completed; the Mack Company got a certificate of occupancy last month for its second downtown building, the 28-story Two Mack Center, and there will be a million square feet of office space in two towers to be completed in 1992.

State of Union in the East Governments in the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, threatened by secessionists and calls for more local control, are looking hard at unity and finding it unsuited to democracy's demands. Page 16. Suspected Terrorist in U.S. An Islamic fundamentalist leader tied to Sadat's assassination entered the United States despite a Federal ban and lives in Brooklyn. Page 44. Feud Stirs Medical Center Cornell University and New York Hospital, partners in a renowned medical center, are feuding. Page 42. News Summary, Page 2 Obituaries, Page 50 Weather, Page 51

WHEN the boys choir of Trinity Episcopal Church in New Haven toured England last year to sing in some of the great cathedrals, its director of activities, Leonard Goss, was approached by a member of a "rather stuffy" group of English choirboys. "He conceded that our boys were 'not bad for Americans,' " Mr. Goss recalled. "But after our last concert there, he came to me and said, 'You know, they are really quite good.' " That may be too mild an accolade for a choir that on Tuesday will sing for tour groups at the White House for the second year in a row. The boys have performed with the New Haven Symphony and Orchestra New England and at St. Thomas Church in Manhattan, singing Leonard Bernstein's "Mass," with the composer in attendance and Benjamin Britten's "War Requiem" under the baton of the conductor Robert Shaw. Every four years, the choir travels to Europe, and in 1973, it was the first American choir invited to participate in a music festival in Italy. Founded in 1885 as part of the Trinity Men and Boys Choir, the traveling team includes 26 boys from 8 to 13 years old, of varied ethnic backgrounds and religions. They are selected from some 100 applicants who audition for the four or five openings each year.

It may not earn the Miami Hurricanes an asterisk in the National Collegiate Athletic Association record book, but a Dade County jury has provided an official imprimatur of sorts to one of the most bizarre reasons ever offered by an athletic director under oath for a loss by a college football team. The football game in question was Notre Dame's 31-30 upset victory over Miami on Oct. 15, 1988, a defeat that cost Miami an otherwise unblemished season and an unofficial national championship.