A World Health Organization report concerning strategies for promoting communication and collaboration between and within the health and educational systems is presented. Changes that are needed to increase communication and collaboration are identified separately for the health services system and the health manpower training system. In addition…

Reported are the results of an examination of career choices of medical students and physicians from 1958 to 1976. The project was undertaken to determine whether or not data collected at admission and matriculation could be used to predict the career choices of medical students. The report identifies and measures the relative importance of…

Predicting that continuing medical education (CME) will be mandatory for doctors within five years, this book traces CME's historical antecedents, analyzes the forces arrayed for and against it, and offers guidelines for its realistic use in a broad program of improving health care. An examination is made of: the evolution of undergraduate and…

The crisis in primary care has long been discussed and the dismal litany of statistics is now familiar. The G.P. is vanishing from the medical scene. Over one-third of the active general practitioners are now over 60. In 1970 the U.S. Congress responded to the declining availability of primary health care by passing the Family Practice Act. The…

Small groups of medical students are asked to enact a situation in which family members visit their general practitioner with a problem regarding one of the children, and the diffusion of this problem within the family is traced during the course of the simulation. Discussion focuses on the feelings evoked by the simulation. (Author/LBH)

Details of the fourth, fifth, and sixth clinical years' course in preventive and community medicine, introduced at New Zealand's Christchurch Clinical School in 1974, are presented. Topic studies, rotating attachments, preventive medical examinations and ward rounds, simulated disabilities, and conferences are discussed. (LBH)

Three factors that will have major effects on the medical cost quality debate are: industrial and governmental policy in regard to health-related expenditures, an aging population, and societal attitudes towards competition in the health care system. Approaches to conflict resolution are offered. (MLW)

The University of Illinois at Chicago's College of Medicine has implemented a pilot interdisciplinary generalist program. This paper discusses the program's setting, management, curriculum, instruction, and student and program evaluation. The difficulties and procedures in making room for an interdisciplinary primary care program in a traditional…

Ideas for integrating preventive medicine into the undergraduate medical curriculum include options for curricula in quantitative skills, clinical preventive medicine, primary care rotation, community health services, and independent continuing education. Recommendations are based on a guide assessing the effectiveness of 169 types of preventive…

Analysis of data from 532 graduates of Jefferson Medical College (Pennsylvania) found first-year students' expectation of income is an important predictor of family practice specialty choice, independent of age, sex, indebtedness, and initial specialty preference. Results are discussed in light of declining numbers of medical students choosing…

A survey of faculty (n=223) and students (n=157) in two different curriculum tracks (problem-based/student-centered primary care vs. regular) at one medical school gathered opinions on the methods and criteria of student evaluation. Differences occurred primarily in the perceptions of first- and second-year students in the problem-based…

A survey of 468 practicing family physicians, general internists, and pediatricians examined relationships between educational debt and specialty choice, practice location choice, and types of patients treated. Results indicate that the high costs of medical training promoted rural work and care for poor patients by prompting generalists to commit…

Information seeking strategies that primary care physicians use to supplement their knowledge in problem solving were studied to help tailor continuing medical education (CME) courses for various groups of physicians. Of interest were: the sequences physicians use to access different sources, variability among physicians in information search…

The results of a study to identify criteria that could help select applicants to medical school who have a lasting commitment to family medicine are presented. During the past 15 years major efforts have been made to increase the number of family physicians in the United States. Although primary care programs attract more students whose initial…