Educating physicians for population-based clinical practice

Abstract

Debates about changing the current paradigm of medical education and medical practice have become fairly common in recent years. Based on my experience as a research director of a prepaid group practice program and as chair of a medical school department of public health and preventive medicine, I contend that the traditional one-to-one physician-patient role obligations should be expanded to include a set of "one-to-n" physician-population obligations. The latter include at least three components: (1) a resource allocation component, (2) a component focusing on the epidemiologic nature of clinical practice, and (3) a component focusing on members of the population who are not regularly attended to within the normal context of physician care. Discussing these in turn, I argue for a population-based clinical practice model of medical education that preserves the Hippocratic tradition while better preparing physicians for the complex practice and insurance realities of the 21st century.