LETTER
Training General Internists and "STARS"
Earl W. Campbell, Jr., MD
1 January 1995 | Volume 122 Issue 1 | Pages 72-73
TO THE EDITOR:
Dr. Fogelman [1] deserves much credit for daring to be innovative in internal medicine education. His proposed changes raise the following questions:
1. Family medicine programs teach all the procedures he documents in 3 years. Why would a prospective resident plan to spend an additional year in medicine to do the same?
2. Is the addition of the fourth year related to the need to provide patient care coverage, which increases as fellowships become less clinically oriented? In short, is this really education disguised as service?
3. Is it not characteristic of internal medicine that a program (the Specialty Training and Academic Research program [STAR]) devised to support research receives special treatment and a laudatory name? What are the 4-year internal medicine primary residents to be called, ASTEROIDS?
Do I detect a certain condescension about generalism that has been inherent in our discipline for years? Is this the best way to engender an optimal image among general internists?
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Author and Article Information
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Medical College of Ohio; Toledo, OH 43699-0008
1. Fogelman AM. Strategies for training generalists and subspecialists. Ann Intern Med. 1994; 120:579-83.
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