PATHOLOGY

or "primary medical care" is increasingly recognized in medical schools in the United States at the present time. The initiative in establishing departments of primary medical care, general practice, family care, or noninstitutional care has been taken, more often than not. by clinicians associated with departments of preventive medicine. The term most in vogue to describe this activity is "comprehensive care", and the teaching of this, with clerkships or other forms of attachment of students to families or patients, is one responsibility of 30 departments of preventive medicine in the United States (there are teaching activities of this nature run by other departments such as internal medicine and psediatrics, in at least anoth~r 27 medical schools; "comprehensive care" thus is taught to medical students in ~pproximatelY tw~-thirds of the medical schools in the United States). TIllS may well be the most important way in which American medical schools are contributing to the problem of interesting medical students in family practice.