The effectiveness of multidisciplinary patient conferences was examined. The question of multidisciplinary conference productivity was addressed by examining the impact of these conferences on a team's formulation of patient therapy plans, problem lists, hospitalization goals, and discharge date. (Author/MLW)

Since practicing New Jersey family physicians still consider house calls important in the delivery of quality primary care, the Department of Family Medicine of the College of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Rutgers Medical School is assisting in revising program curricula to provide house call training. (Author/LBH)

The spectrum of patients seen in a traditional hospital-based training program is compared with patients seen in the University of Minnesota's ambulatory care clinic. Records were kept of the author's primary care experience with 687 patients. (LBH)

Data concerning time with patients and time with attending physicians tended to be inversely associated with patient volume in a time-study of family practice residents. The results are used to illustrate and develop some issues involved in the design of residency experiences for primary care physicians. (Editor/LBH)

A comparison of the ability of 12 students trained in an outpatient setting to examine hospitalized patients with that of students trained in the traditional inpatient-oriented program revealed no difference between the two groups. This finding has implications for curriculum planners seeking ways to restructure fundamental courses that develop…

The experience of two combined residency programs in internal medicine and pediatrics is reviewed. The difficulty for residents of achieving competence in two disciplines is compounded by a lack of faculty role models. Success will depend on the ability of graduates to offer special talents to academic and clinical settings. (Author/MLW)

Opinions were obtained from residents, family medicine faculty, and attending physicians familiar with an established family medicine residency program regarding the tasks that family doctors should and should not perform. (LBH)

An academic general medicine clinic (GMC) was studied and profiles were generated to determine current patterns, shortcomings, and potential solutions. Conclusions include that GMC offers insufficient variety of patient presentations for optimal postgraduate medical education and inadequate accessibility for comprehensive medical care. (Author/JMD)

Context: Diabetes mellitus and its complications disproportionately affect minority citizens in rural communities, many of whom have limited access to comprehensive diabetes management services. Purpose: To explore the efficacy of combining care management and interdisciplinary group visits for rural African American patients with diabetes…

The relationship between verbal exchange in doctor-patient consultations and patients' comprehension has been measured by audio-tape recordings. The results provide objective evidence of differences in outcomes for similar presenting illnesses in different social groups, supporting the hypothesis that people in lower socioeconomic classes do not…

The recurrent failure to adequately conceptualize the medical meaning of "disease" is explained as a function of the way this is taught in the curriculum, since it is transmitted within the internal structure relationships of the medical course. Curriculum reform therefore must stress educational structure as well as content change. (Author/LBH)

A self-instructional health education program that utilizes a slide-tape device was studied to determine whether it could be educationally effective in an ambulatory clinical setting without being an inconvenience to patients. Infant and child nutrition was chosen as the topic to be used in the waiting room of a pediatric clinic. (JMD)

A review of 287 patient visits to a teaching hospital polyclinic shows that most patients had multiple problems that required the help of subspecialists. However, the patients' needs for accessibility, comprehensiveness, coordination, and continuity are as great as those of patients receiving primary care. Implications for academic internal…

The cycles of growth of the nursing profession depict subordination of nursing to hospital administration and medicine. Nursing is ready to move into an integrative, collaborative stage of development that places nurses directly responsible to patients, and this would facilitate nursing's response to clients' health concerns wherever they occur.…

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)