Suggests a new comprehensive health care relationship between patient and physician to educate the patient to understand mental and physical health and disease and how he can protect his own health. (IR)

High quality care and teaching in a nursing home require organization of an active medical staff that enhances and does not distract from a physician's commitment to his practice in the office and hospital. The medical residency program at the Jewish Home for the Elderly of Fairfield, Connecticut, is described. (MLW)

A pilot program at the University of California, Davis, that incorporated skilled nursing facility training into the required curriculum of their primary care internal medicine residency is described. The goal was to increase the residents' knowledge in the care of geriatric patients. (MLW)

Forces acting on medical education and compelling a reexamination of current approaches include cost containment, competition and price sensitivity, new technologies, the physician surplus, and a rapidly expanding, politically assertive aging population. (MSE)