'Catch-22s' for Family Physician Educators
- Bruce F. Currie, PhD;
- John H. Renner, MD
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
Excerpt
FEDERAL and state funds being channeled into the training of family physicians have created a dilemma for many medical school administrators: how to adapt their institutional missions to changing specialty needs without threatening established clinical departments.
Conversely, the ambivalence of some university administrators about incorporating a generalist department has created a dilemma for family physician educators in those institutions: how to achieve first-class citizenship without being co-opted by the emphasis on subspecialization.
The "catch-22s" for medical schools and new departments of family medicine have some of their origins in the "town-gown" dissension that has often divided private practice physicians from their full-time faculty counterparts in university communities. Because a premium is placed on highly differentiated information in academia, medical school faculties are inclined to question the scholarly value of a discipline like family medicine with its integrative rather than elaborative emphasis.1 Subspecialist faculty (particularly in internal medicine) also question
Footnotes
-
Reprint requests to Department of Family Medicine and Practice, 777 S Mills St, Madison, WI 53715 (Dr Currie).
