PEDIATRICS Vol. 72 No. 4 October 1983, pp. 577-578
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Optimism and Myths

MICHAEL KLEIN MD1

1 Departments of Family Medicine and Pediatrics, McGill University, School of Medicine, Hôpital Général Juif, 5750 Cote Des Neiges, Montreal, Quebec H3T 1E2, Canada

To the Editor.—

This is a letter about optimism and myths. St. Geme1 commenting on the challenging article by Starfield2 writes an extremely positive and optimistic forecast for the future of pediatrics. He addresses the issue of the changing curricular content of the newer ambulatory pediatric programs and expresses confidence that they will produce the "Oslerian" "consultative generalists" or "generalists-specialists" of the future, especially in the area of the new morbidity.

It is important to be optimistic, but one also should be realistic and acknowledge the fact that few of the new ambulatory programs have such depth as to be able to compete successfully with traditionally subspecialist-dominated training programs.