LETTER
The Breast Cancer Screening Controversy Continues
Joseph J. Gilberti
1 May 1993 | Volume 118 Issue 9 | Pages 746-749
TO THE EDITOR:
Your recent editorial [1] is most timely and important. As a medical oncologist whose first love was primary care and now as a full-time teacher, I am particularly concerned. Our second-year students are taught breast examination as part of the physical diagnosis course. Soon thereafter until graduation, they are involved in ambulatory care at community health centers [2]. In supervising students, I have been dismayed that they often omit routine breast examination. The usual explanation is that the patient was having a "routine check-up" or was in "to have prescriptions refilled." Although some patients refuse breast examinations, especially at the hands of student doctors, this may establish a bad practice habit.
1. Fletcher SW, Fletcher RH. The breast is close to the heart (Editorial). Ann Intern Med. 1992; 117:970-1.
2. Gravdal J, Glasser M. The integration of the student into ambulatory primary care: a decade of experience. Family Medicine. 1987; 19:457-62.
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