THE GENERAL PRACTITIONER IN A CHANGING WORLD.

Abstract

Throughout the world there is need for physicians to render primary and continuing health care to individuals, families, and communities; and there is growing concern over the deficiency in the numbers of such doctors. In the U.S.A. there has been a decrease in the number of general practitioners and others who are in the best position to render this kind of service, and the number of medical graduates entering this field continues to decline. Many reasons for this state of affairs have been offered, but one fact stands out above all others: the majority of medical students wish to engage in a career of service and significance but are unwilling to become second-class physicians. If young men are to be recruited into family practice we must build for them a clinical and academic specialty in which research is being done, and in which they can obtain significant qualifications.