Organizing Medical Education to Meet Health Needs

Abstract

The increasing demand for medical services neces sitates an immediate expansion of medical education. The present ratio of 141 physicians per 100,000 persons is the minimum for adequate health protection, and that ratio has been maintained only because of a substantial influx of for eign-educated physicians, an influx not to be counted on in the future. A 50 per cent increase in the number of medical graduates must be produced by 1975 just to keep pace with population growth. Such problems as the supply and qual ity of students, the supply of faculty, and the length and com plexity of the curriculum are very serious, because they repre sent obstacles to expansion. Continual re-evaluation of the medical school curriculum in terms of content and organiza tion is one effort which should have far-reaching effects. Con stant attention to administrative and organizational relations, especially the relations between the medical school and the university, will alleviate many problems. Expansion of the organizational setting and the administrative apparatus of the medical school will solve some problems and create new ones. Finally, sufficient funds for medical education will provide the sine qua non for meeting America's future health needs.