academic and non-academic physicians must integrate their forces for the "common good" of medicine

Academic and non-academic physicians need to combine their forces in protecting medicine's ideals. But too often they act as if they are in different universes. This is bad for the common good of the profession.



In an April 8 article of JAMA titled “A Single Mission for Academic Medicine” the authors argue for integrating academia’s traditional missions of education, research , and clinical service; suggesting that not doing so may generate counterproductive internecine rivalries.

Not being an academician I am not qualified to meddle with the wisdom of the authors’ position. However, at the risk of sounding officious, I am inspired to make a comment.

I respectfully add that to the three roles they mentioned, —education, research, and clinical service—they add a fourth, that of medical advocacy or as some might call it, medical stewardship. Academic medicine has a strong voice yet only a few of its members are as vocal as they might be in the great health care debate.

In the same way that the authors suggest that integrating academic medicine’s three goals will make its combined effort stronger and more effective, so too academic physicians and private physicians by combining their political strengths would add immense strength to promoting and protecting medicine’s ideals from the many forces aligned against it. The "common good " of medicine is at stake.

Ed Volpintesta MD