Occupational Medicine: Too Much Expected?

Excerpt

To the Editors: The recent position paper (1) represents a valuable advance toward defining a role that has so far eluded any comfortable categorization or implementation. However, as a practitioner and consultant in occupational and environmental medicine as well as an internist, I am uncomfortable with the breadth of the role that has been outlined. This is especially true in light of the current lack of relevant training opportunities for internists.

Risk assessment and risk characterization are formidable tasks that depend on familiarity with both a broad literature and specific case examples. This is also true for evaluation of the